She stopped, out of breath almost.

'Do you think she's going to enchanter you?' asked Peterkin, in a
whisper. 'Do you think she wasn't asked to your christening, or anything
like that?'

Margaret shook her head again.

'_Something_ like that, I suppose,' she replied. 'She looks at me
through her spectacles so queerly, you can't think. You see, I was ill
at Gran's before I came here: not very badly, though he fussed a good
deal about it. And he thought the sea-air would do me good. But I've
often had colds, and I never was treated like this before--never. For
ever so long, _she_,' and Margaret nodded towards somewhere unknown,
'wouldn't let me come downstairs at all. And then I cried--sometimes I
_roared_, and luckily the parrot heard, and began to talk about it in
his way. And you see it's through him that _you_ got to know about me,
so I'm sure he's on the other side, and knows she's a witch, but----'

CHAPTER VII

THE GREAT PLAN

AT that moment the clock--a clock somewhere near--struck. Margaret
started, and listened,--'One, two, three.' She looked pleased.

'It's only a quarter to one,' she said. 'Half-an-hour still to my
dinner. What time do you need to get home by?'

'A quarter-past will do for us,' I said.

'Oh, then it's all right,' she replied. 'But I must be quick. I want to
know all that the parrot told you.'

'It was more what he had said to Mrs. Wylie,' I explained, 'copying you,
you know. And, at first, she called you "that poor child," and told us
she was so sorry for you.'

'But now she won't say anything. She pinched up her lips about you the
other day,' added Peterkin.

Margaret seemed very interested, but not very surprised.

'Oh, then, Miss Bogle is beginning to bewitch her too,' she said. 'Nurse
is a goose, as I told you. She just does everything Miss Bogle wants.
And if it wasn't for the parrot and you,' she went on solemnly, 'I
daresay when Gran comes home he'd find me turned into a pussy-cat.'

'Or a mouse, or even a frog,' said Peterkin, his eyes gleaming; 'only
then he wouldn't know it was you, unless your nurse told him.'

'She wouldn't,' said Margaret, 'the witch would take care to stop her,
or to turn her into a big cat herself, or something. There'd be only the
parrot, and Gran mightn't understand him. It's better not to risk it.
And that's what I'm planning about. But it will take a great deal of
planning, though I've been thinking about it ever since you came, a