They had not reached the duck-pond, when there came toddling up to them such a funny little girl. She had a great quantity of hair blowing about her chubby little cheeks, and looked as if she had not been washed or combed for ever so long. She wore a ragged bit of a cloak, and had only one shoe on.
"You little wretch, who let you in here?" asked Gruffanuff.
"Dive me dat bun," said the little girl, "me vely hungry."
"Hungry! what is that?" asked Princess Angelica, and gave the child the bun.
"Oh, Princess!" says Gruffanuff, "how good, how kind, how truly angelical you are! See, your Majesties," she said to the King and Queen, who now came up, along with their nephew, Prince Giglio, "how kind the Princess is! She met this little dirty wretch in the garden—I can't tell how she came in here, or why the guards did not shoot her dead at the gate!—and the dear darling of a Princess has given her the whole of her bun!"
"I didn't want it," said Angelica.
"But you are a darling little angel all the same," says the governess.
"Yes, I know I am," said Angelica. "Dirty little girl, don't you think I am very pretty?" Indeed, she had on the finest of little dresses and hats; and, as her hair was carefully curled, she really looked very well.
"Oh, pooty, pooty!" says the little girl, capering about, laughing and dancing, and munching her bun; and as she ate it she began to sing: "O what fun to have a plum bun! how I wis it never was done!" At which, and her funny accent Angelica, Giglio and the King and Queen began to laugh very merrily.
"I can dance as well as sing," says the little girl. "I can dance, and I can sing, and I can do all sorts of ting." And she ran to a flower-bed, and, pulling a few polyanthuses, rhododendrons, and other flowers, made herself a little wreath, and danced before the King and Queen so drolly and prettily, that everybody was delighted.