We came closer to the window. Margaret looked at us again in her examining way, without speaking, for a minute, and before she said anything, Pete held out his brown-paper parcel.
'This is the poetry-book,' he said, 'and I've put a mark in the place where it's about my name.'
He pulled off his cap as he handed the packet to her, and stood with his curly wig looking almost red in the sunlight, though it was not very bright.
'Put it on again,' said Margaret, in her little queer way, meaning his cap. 'And thank you very much, Perkin, for remembering to bring it. I think I should like to call you "Perkin," if you don't mind. I like to have names of my own for some people, and I really thought yours was Perkin.'
I wished to myself she would have a name of her own for me, but I suppose she thought I was too big.
'I think you are very nice boys,' she went on, 'not "naughty" ones at all; and if you will promise not to tell any one what I am going to tell you, I will explain all I can. I mean you mustn't tell any one till I give you leave, and as it's only about my own affairs, of course you can promise.'
Of course we did promise.
'Listen, then,' said Margaret, glancing up first of all at the parrot, and drawing back a little into the inside of the room. 'You can hear what I say, even though I don't speak very loudly, can't you?'
'Oh yes! quite well,' we replied.
'Well, then, listen,' she repeated. 'I have no brothers or sisters, and Dads and Mummy are in India. I lived there till about three years ago, and then they came here and left me with my grandfather. That's how people always have to do who live in India.'