Courage and despatch!'

We went over the stones on tiptoe, and we found another wall with another door in it on the other side. We went through that too, on tiptoe. It really was an adventure. And there we were in a shrubbery, and we saw something white through the trees. Dora said it was the white bear. That is so like Dora. She always begins to take part in a play just when the rest of us are getting tired of it. I don't mean this unkindly, because I am very fond of Dora. I cannot forget how kind she was when I had bronchitis; and ingrat.i.tude is a dreadful vice. But it is quite true.

'It is not a bear,' said Oswald; and we all went on, still on tiptoe, round a twisty path and on to a lawn, and there was Noel. His collar had come undone, as I said, and he had an inky mark on his face that he made just before we left the house, and he wouldn't let Dora wash it off, and one of his bootlaces was coming down. He was standing looking at a little girl; she was the funniest little girl you ever saw.

She was like a china doll--the sixpenny kind; she had a white face, and long yellow hair, done up very tight in two pigtails; her forehead was very big and lumpy, and her cheeks came high up, like little shelves under her eyes. Her eyes were small and blue. She had on a funny black frock, with curly braid on it, and b.u.t.ton boots that went almost up to her knees. Her legs were very thin. She was sitting in a hammock chair nursing a blue kitten--not a sky-blue one, of course, but the colour of a new slate pencil. As we came up we heard her say to Noel--'Who are you?'

Noel had forgotten about the bear, and he was taking his favourite part, so he said--'I'm Prince Camaralzaman.'

The funny little girl looked pleased--

'I thought at first you were a common boy,' she said. Then she saw the rest of us and said--

'Are you all Princesses and Princes too?'

Of course we said 'Yes,' and she said--

'I am a Princess also.' She said it very well too, exactly as if it were true. We were very glad, because it is so seldom you meet any children who can begin to play right off without having everything explained to them. And even then they will say they are going to 'pretend to be' a lion, or a witch, or a king. Now this little girl just said 'I _am_ a Princess.' Then she looked at Oswald and said, 'I fancy I've seen you at Baden.'

Of course Oswald said, 'Very likely.'

The little girl had a funny voice, and all her words were quite plain, each word by itself; she didn't talk at all like we do.

H. O. asked her what the cat's name was, and she said 'Katinka.' Then d.i.c.ky said--

'Let's get away from the windows; if you play near windows some one inside generally knocks at them and says "Don't".'

The Princess put down the cat very carefully and said--

'I am forbidden to walk off the gra.s.s.'

'That's a pity,' said Dora.

'But I will if you like,' said the Princess.

'You mustn't do things you are forbidden to do,' Dora said; but d.i.c.ky showed us that there was some more gra.s.s beyond the shrubs with only a gravel path between. So I lifted the Princess over the gravel, so that she should be able to say she hadn't walked off the gra.s.s. When we got to the other gra.s.s we all sat down, and the Princess asked us if we liked 'dragees' (I know that's how you spell it, for I asked Albert-next-door's uncle).

We said we thought not, but she pulled a real silver box out of her pocket and showed us; they were just flat, round chocolates. We had two each. Then we asked her her name, and she began, and when she began she went on, and on, and on, till I thought she was never going to stop. H.

O. said she had fifty names, but d.i.c.ky is very good at figures, and he says there were only eighteen. The first were Pauline, Alexandra, Alice, and Mary was one, and Victoria, for we all heard that, and it ended up with Hildegarde Cunigonde something or other, Princess of something else.

When she'd done, H. O. said, 'That's jolly good! Say it again!' and she did, but even then we couldn't remember it. We told her our names, but she thought they were too short, so when it was Noel's turn he said he was Prince Noel Camaralzaman Ivan Constantine Charlemagne James John Edward Biggs Maximilian Bastable Prince of Lewisham, but when she asked him to say it again of course he could only get the first two names right, because he'd made it up as he went on.

So the Princess said, 'You are quite old enough to know your own name.'

She was very grave and serious.

She told us that she was the fifth cousin of Queen Victoria. We asked who the other cousins were, but she did not seem to understand. She went on and said she was seven times removed. She couldn't tell us what that meant either, but Oswald thinks it means that the Queen's cousins are so fond of her that they will keep coming bothering, so the Queen's servants have orders to remove them. This little girl must have been very fond of the Queen to try so often to see her, and to have been seven times removed. We could see that it is considered something to be proud of; but we thought it was hard on the Queen that her cousins wouldn't let her alone.

Presently the little girl asked us where our maids and governesses were.

We told her we hadn't any just now. And she said--

'How pleasant! And did you come here alone?'

'Yes,' said Dora; 'we came across the Heath.'

'You are very fortunate,' said the little girl. She sat very upright on the gra.s.s, with her fat little hands in her lap. 'I should like to go on the Heath. There are donkeys there, with white saddle covers. I should like to ride them, but my governess will not permit.'

'I'm glad we haven't a governess,' H. O. said. 'We ride the donkeys whenever we have any pennies, and once I gave the man another penny to make it gallop.'

'You are indeed fortunate!' said the Princess again, and when she looked sad the shelves on her cheeks showed more than ever. You could have laid a sixpence on them quite safely if you had had one.

'Never mind,' said Noel; 'I've got a lot of money. Come out and have a ride now.' But the little girl shook her head and said she was afraid it would not be correct.

Dora said she was quite right; then all of a sudden came one of those uncomfortable times when n.o.body can think of anything to say, so we sat and looked at each other. But at last Alice said we ought to be going.

'Do not go yet,' the little girl said. 'At what time did they order your carriage?'

'Our carriage is a fairy one, drawn by griffins, and it comes when we wish for it,' said Noel.

The little girl looked at him very queerly, and said, 'That is out of a picture-book.'

Then Noel said he thought it was about time he was married if we were to be home in time for tea. The little girl was rather stupid over it, but she did what we told her, and we married them with Dora's pocket-handkerchief for a veil, and the ring off the back of one of the b.u.t.tons on H. O.'s blouse just went on her little finger.

Then we showed her how to play cross-touch, and puss in the corner, and tag. It was funny, she didn't know any games but battledore and shuttlec.o.c.k and les graces. But she really began to laugh at last and not to look quite so like a doll.

She was Puss and was running after d.i.c.ky when suddenly she stopped short and looked as if she was going to cry. And we looked too, and there were two prim ladies with little mouths and tight hair. One of them said in quite an awful voice, 'Pauline, who are these children?' and her voice was gruff; with very curly R's.

The little girl said we were Princes and Princesses--which was silly, to a grown-up person that is not a great friend of yours.

The gruff lady gave a short, horrid laugh, like a husky bark, and said--

'Princes, indeed! They're only common children!'

Dora turned very red and began to speak, but the little girl cried out 'Common children! Oh, I am so glad! When I am grown up I'll always play with common children.'

And she ran at us, and began to kiss us one by one, beginning with Alice; she had got to H. O. when the horrid lady said--'Your Highness--go indoors at once!'

The little girl answered, 'I won't!'

Then the prim lady said--'Wilson, carry her Highness indoors.'

And the little girl was carried away screaming, and kicking with her little thin legs and her b.u.t.toned boots, and between her screams she shrieked:

'Common children! I am glad, glad, glad! Common children! Common children!'

The nasty lady then remarked--'Go at once, or I will send for the police!'

So we went. H. O. made a face at her and so did Alice, but Oswald took off his cap and said he was sorry if she was annoyed about anything; for Oswald has always been taught to be polite to ladies, however nasty.

d.i.c.ky took his off, too, when he saw me do it; he says he did it first, but that is a mistake. If I were really a common boy I should say it was a lie.