'Good morning, boys! Good morning! Pretty Poll!'
'He didn't say "naughty boys,"' I remarked.
'No, of course not,' replied Peterkin; 'because he knows all about it now, you see.'
'We mustn't stand here long, however,' I said. 'I wond——'
'I wonder why Margaret hasn't hung out a handkerchief if she couldn't get to speak to us,' I was going to have said, but just at that moment we heard a voice on the upstairs balcony—
'Good Polly,' it said, 'good, good Polly.'
And the parrot repeated with great pride—
'Good, good Polly.'
But when we looked up there was no one to be seen, only I thought one of the glass doors of Margaret's dining-room clicked a little. And I was right. In another moment there she was herself, on the dining-room balcony—half on it, that's to say, and half just inside.
'Isn't he good?' she said, when we came as near as we dared to hear her. 'I told him to let me know as soon as he saw you, for I couldn't manage the handkerchief, and I was afraid you might have gone before I could catch you. Nurse has been after me so this morning, for the witch was angry with me yesterday for standing at the window without my shawl. But you mustn't stay,' and she nodded in her queenly little way. 'It's keeping all right—Wednesday at half-past two, at the corner next the Square—wet or fine. Good-bye.'