They were rather interesting, but I think we've got to care more for collections and treasures like that, now, than we did then. Perhaps we were not quite old enough, and, I daresay, it was a good deal that the great reason we liked to go to Mrs. Wylie's was because of the parrot and the mysterious little girl. At least, _Peterkin's_ head was full of the little girl. I myself was beginning to get rather tired of all his talk about her, and I thought the parrot very good fun of himself.

So when the clock struck six, and Mrs. Wylie asked us if mamma had fixed any time for us to be home by--it wasn't that she wanted to get rid of us, but she was very afraid of keeping us too late--we thought we might as well go, for mamma had said, 'soon after six.'

'Is any one coming to fetch you?' Mrs. Wylie said.

I didn't quite like her asking that: it made me seem so babyish. I was quite old enough to look after Pete, and the fun of going home by ourselves through the lighted-up streets was one of the things we had looked forward to.

But I didn't want Master Peterkin to begin at me afterwards about not being polite, so I didn't show that I was at all vexed. I just said--

'Oh no, Peterkin will be all right with me!'

And then we said good-bye, and 'thank you very much for inviting us.'

And Pete actually said--

'May we come again soon, please?'

His ideas of politeness were rather original, weren't they?

But Mrs. Wylie was quite pleased.

'Certainly, my dear. I shall count on your doing so. And I am glad you spoke of it, for I wanted to tell you that I am going to London the end of this next week for a fortnight. Will you tell your dear mamma so, and say that I shall come to see her on my return, and then we must fix on another afternoon? I am very pleased to think that you care to come, and I hope you feel the same,' she went on, turning to me.

She was so kind that I felt I had been rather horrid, for I _had_ enjoyed it all very much. And I said as nicely as I could, that I'd like to come again, only I hoped we didn't bother her. She beamed all over at that, and Peterkin evidently approved of it too, for he grinned in a queer patronising way he has sometimes, as if I was a baby compared to him.

I was just going to pull him up for it after we had got on our coats and caps, and were outside and the door shut, but before I had got farther than--'I say, youngster,'--he startled me rather by saying, in a very melancholy tone--

'It's too bad, Giles, isn't it? Her going away, and us hearing nothing of the little girl. I really thought she'd have asked her to tea too.'

'How you muddle your "her's" and "she's"!' I said. But of course I understood him. 'I think you muddle yourself too. If there's a mystery, and you know you'd be very disappointed if there wasn't, you couldn't expect the little girl to come to tea just as if everything was quite like everybody else about her.'

'No, that's true,' said he, consideringly. 'P'raps she's invisible sometimes, or p'raps she's like the "Light Princess," that they had to tie down for fear she'd float away, or p'raps----'

'She's invisible to us, anyway,' I interrupted, for, as I said, I was getting rather tired of Pete's fancies about the little girl, 'and so----'

But just as I got so far, we both stopped--we were pa.s.sing the railing of the little girl's house at that moment, and voices talking rather loudly caught our ears. Peterkin touched my arm, and we stood quite still. No one could see us, it was too dark, and there was no lamp just there, though some light was streaming out from the lower windows of the house. One of them, the dining-room one, was a little open, even though it was a chilly evening.

It was so queer, our hearing the voices and almost seeing into the room, _just_ as we had been making up our minds that we'd never know anything about the little girl; it seemed so queer, that we didn't, at first, think of anything else. It wasn't for some minutes, or moments, certainly, that it came into my head that we shouldn't stay there peeping and listening. I'm afraid it wasn't a very gentlemanly sort of thing to do. As for Peterkin, I'm pretty sure he never had the slightest idea that we were doing anything caddish.

What we heard was this--

'No, I don't want any more tea. I'd better go to bed. It's so dull, Nana.'

Then another voice replied--it came from some one further back in the room, but we could not distinguish the words--

'There aren't any stars. You may as well shut the window. And stars aren't much good. I want some one to play with me. Other little--' but just then we saw the shadow of some one crossing the room, and the window--it was a gla.s.s-door kind of window like the ones up above, which opened on to the balcony, for there was a little sort of balcony downstairs too--was quickly closed. There was no more to be heard or seen; not even shadows, for the curtains were now drawn across.

Pete gave a deep sigh, and I felt that he was looking at me, though it was too dark to see, and there was no lamp just there. He wanted to know what I thought.

'Come along,' I said, and we walked on.

'Did you hear?' asked Peterkin at last. 'She said she wanted somebody to play with her.'

'Yes,' I said, 'it is rather queer. You'd think Mrs. Wylie might have made friends with her, and invited her to tea. But it's no good our bothering about it,' and I walked a little faster, and began to whistle.

I did not want Pete to go on again talking a lot about his invisible princess, for such she seemed likely to remain.

It was far easier, however, to get anything into Peterkin's fancy than to get it out again, as I might have known by experience. We had not gone far before I felt him tugging at my arm.

'Don't walk so fast, Gilley,' he said--poor, little chap, he was quite breathless with trying to keep up with me, so I had to slacken a bit,--'and do let me talk to you. When we get home I shan't have a chance--not till to-morrow morning in bed, I daresay; for they'll all be wanting to hear about Mrs. Wylie, and what we had for tea, and everything.'

I did not so much mind about _that_ part of it, but I did not want to be awakened before dawn the next morning to listen to all he'd got to say.

So I thought I might as well let him come out with some of it.

'What do you want to talk about?' I said.

'Oh! of course, you know,' he replied. 'It's about the _poor_ little girl. I am so dreffully sorry for her, Gilley, and I want to plan something. It's no good asking Mrs. Wylie. We'll have to do something ourselves. I'm afraid the people she's with lock her up, or something.

_P'raps_ they daren't let her go out, if there's some wicked fairy, or a witch, or something like that, that wants to run off with her.'

'Well, then, the best thing to do _is_ to lock her up,' I said sensibly.

But that wasn't Peterkin's way of looking at things.

'It's never like that in my stories,' he said--and I know he was shaking his curly head,--'and some of them are very, very old--nearly as old as Bible stories, I believe; so they must be true, you see. There's always somebody that comes to break the--the--I forget the proper word.'

'The enchantment, you mean,' I said.

'No, no; a shorter word. Oh, I know--the spell,' he replied. 'Yes, somebody comes to break the _spell_. And that's what we've got to do, Gilley. At least, I'm sure I've got to, and you must help me. You see, it's all been so funny. The parrot knows, I should think, for I'm sure he's partly fairy. But, very likely, he daren't say it right out, for fear of the bad fairy, and----'

'Perhaps he's the bad fairy himself,' I interrupted, half joking, but rather interested, all the same, in Peterkin's ideas.

'Oh no,' he replied, 'I know he's not, and I'm sure Mrs. Wylie has nothing to do with the bad fairy.'

'Then why do you think she won't talk about the little girl, or invite her, or anything?' I asked.

Pete seemed puzzled.

'I don't know,' he said. 'There's a lot to find out. P'raps Mrs. Wylie doesn't know anything about the spell, and has just got some stupid, common reason for not wanting us to play with the little girl, or p'raps'--and this was plainly a brilliant idea--'_p'raps_ the spell's put on her without her knowing, and stops her when she begins to speak about it. Mightn't it very likely be that, Giles?'

But I had not time to answer, for we had got to our own door by now, and it was already opened, as some tradesman was giving James a parcel. So we ran in.

CHAPTER V

'STRATAGEMS'

I REALLY don't quite know what made me listen to Peterkin's fancies about his invisible princess, as I got into the habit of calling her. It was partly, I suppose, because it amused me--we had nothing much to take us up just then: there was no skating that winter, and the weather was dull and muggy--and partly that somehow he managed to make me feel as if there might really be something in it. I suppose when anybody quite believes in a thing, it's rather catching; and Peterkin's head was so stuffed and crammed with fairy stories that at that time, I think, they were almost more real to him than common things.