e open.

'He'd be very glad to know where I was, _I_ should say,' Margaret
replied. 'My own nursey will write to him, and I will myself. It'll be a
good deal better than if I stayed to be turned into something he'd never
know was me. Then, what would Dads and Mummy say to _him_ for having
lost me?'

'The parrot'd tell, p'raps,' said Pete.

'As if anybody would believe him!' exclaimed Margaret, 'except people
who understand about fairies and witches and things like that, that you
two and I know about.'

She was giving _me_ credit for more believing in 'things like that' than
I was feeling just then, to tell the truth. But what I did feel rather
disagreeably sure of, was this queer little girl's determination. She
sometimes spoke as if she was twenty. Putting it all together, I had a
sort of instinct that it was best not to laugh at her ideas at all, as
the next thing would be that she and her devoted 'Perkins' would be
making plans without me, and really getting lost, or into dreadful
troubles of some kind. So I contented myself with just saying--

'Why should Miss Bogle want to turn you into anything?'

'Because witches are like that,' said Peterkin, answering for his
princess.

'And because she hates the bother of having me,' added Margaret. 'She
has written to Gran that I am very troublesome--nurse told me so; nurse
can't hold her tongue--and I daresay I am,' she added truly. 'And so, if
I seemed to be lost, she'd say it wasn't her fault. And as I suppose I'd
never be found, there'd be an end of it.'

'You couldn't but be found _now_,' said Peterkin, 'as, you see, _we'd_
know.'

'If she didn't turn _you_ into something too,' said Margaret, with the
sparkle of mischief in her eyes again.

Pete looked rather startled at this new idea.

'The best thing to do is for me to go away to a safe place while I'm
still myself,' she added.

'But have you got the exact address? Do you know what station to go to,
and all that sort of thing?' I asked. 'And have you got money enough?'

'Plenty,' she said, nodding her head; 'plenty for all I've planned. Of
course I know the station--it's the same as for my own home, and nursey
lives in the village where the railway comes. Much nearer than _our_
house, which is two miles off. And I know nursey will have me, even if
she had to sleep on the floor herself. The only bother is that I'll have
to change out of the train from _here_, and get into another at a place
that's calle