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 Dicky 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 grass.”

“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 Dicky showed us that there was some more grass 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 page: 86 the grass. When we got to the other grass we all sat down, and the Princess asked us if we liked “dragées” (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 Dicky 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.