Hugh’s father’s place, Langton Weaver, lay on the slope of a low hill not far from Hungerford, looking over the plain towards where the old red Elizabethan pile of Littlecott lies embowered in trees. Hugh, that bright afternoon, was kicking his heels about in the lane outside his father’s gates, which was of course against all rules. But Hugh was lonely that afternoon, he never had any brothers or sisters, and he was wondering what he would do next, and he was hoping that someone would come along to do something with--when, bang, there he was in that garden and a little kid advancing on him with a finger stuck in her mouth. It was very odd, Hugh said. “Hullo!” she said. All eyes, that’s what she was. “Hullo!” Hugh said. She was only a kid, after all. Hugh was nine. “You’re a boy,” she said. “Of course I’m a boy,” Hugh said, and he was going to add “just as you’re a girl,” but a fellow couldn’t stand there arguing all day with a slip of a thing like that. Then he suddenly remembered he didn’t know where he was. “I say,” he said, “I don’t know how I got here. What’s this place?” She twisted her finger out of her mouth and stared at the wet thing. Hugh remembered that it shone in the sun. And her hair shone in the sun, too. Hugh said her hair shone even when they were in the shade. But of course he didn’t attach any importance to that kind of thing. “I say, where am I?” Hugh asked again. He must have sounded pathetic, in spite of himself. “You’re here,” she said. “What’s your name?” “Hugh,” he said. “But, I say, where’s here? I’ve never seen that house before. My father’s got the biggest house round here, Langton Weaver. My father’s Lord of the Manor, and when he’s dead I’m Lord of the Manor.” “Oo!” she said, staring. Hugh said he felt frightfully let down. Any other kid would have exalted the merits of her own house, but she just swallowed everything and stared at you. Hugh said he felt as though he had been boasting. “Our house doesn’t look so jolly clean as this,” he said. “Rather live here, any day.” And he suddenly realised he was speaking the truth. That was the amazing part of it, Hugh said: suddenly to feel that he would much rather live here than in his father’s house. With this kid. And from that moment, somehow, he forgot every particle of his surprise at being in that garden. “What’s your name?” he asked. “Not got a name,” the kid said. “No name.” All legs and eyes, that’s what she was. “But you must have a name!” Hugh cried. “Everyone’s got names, even dogs and cats. We’ve got seven dogs and they’re all called after every day in the week except one because you can’t call a dog Sunday, father says.” “No name,” she said breathlessly. “I’m me.” “But look here, how do they call you when they want you?” He thought he’d got her there all right, Hugh said. She giggled. “I just come,” she giggled. “I don’t need to be called. Oo! Just come when I’m wanted. Did you want me? You did, didn’t you?”