'No,' said Peterkin, 'it isn't in history, but it's in poetry. About a battle. I've got it in a book.'
'I should like to see it,' she said. 'There's lots of my name in history. My name is Margaret. There are queens and princesses called Margaret.'
Pete opened his mouth as if he was going to speak, but shut it up again. I know what he had been on the point of saying,—'Are you a princess?' 'a shut-up princess?' he would have added very likely, but I suppose he was sensible enough to see that if she had been 'shut-up,' in the way he had been fancying to himself, she would scarcely have been able to come downstairs and talk to us as she was doing. And she was not dressed like the princesses in his stories, who had always gold crowns on and long shiny trains. Still, though she had only a pinafore on, I could see that it was rather a grand one, lots of lace about it, like one of Elf's very best, and though her hair was short and her face small and pale, there was something about her—the way she stood and the way she spoke—which was different from many little girls of her age.
Peterkin took advantage very cleverly of what she had said about his name.
'I'll bring you my poetry-book, if you like,' he said. 'It's a quite old one. I think it belonged to grandmamma, and she's as old as—as old as—' he seemed at a loss to find anything to compare poor grandmamma to, till suddenly a bright idea struck him—'nearly as old as Mrs. Wylie, I should think,' he finished up.
'Oh,' said Margaret, 'do you know Mrs. Wylie? I've never seen her, but I think I've heard her talk. Her house is next door to the parrot's.'
'Yes,' said I, 'but I wonder you've never seen her. She often goes out.'
'But—' began the little girl again, 'I've been—oh, I do believe that's my dinner clattering in the kitchen, and nurse will be coming in, and I've never told you about the parrot. I've lots to tell you. Will you come again? Not to-morrow, but on Wednesday nurse is going out to the dressmaker's. I heard her settling it. Please come on Wednesday, just like this.'
'We could come a little earlier, perhaps,' I said.
Margaret nodded.