He wondered about this a good deal as the first slow half. hour ticked on. But you need not wonder， for I am going to tell you. She had got home late for her dinner， with her shoes and stockings very wet. And when they asked her where she had been and what on earth she had been doing，she said she had been out with Digory Kirke. Under further questioning she said she had got her feet wet in a pool of water， and that the pool was in a wood. Asked where the wood was， she said she didn’t know. Asked if it was in one of the parks， she said truthfully enough that she supposed it might be a sort of park. From all of this Polly‘s mother got the idea that Polly had gone off， without telling anyone， to some part of London she didn’t know， and gone into a strange park and amused herself jumping into puddles. As a result she was told that she had been very naughty indeed and that she wouldn‘t be allowed to play with “that Kirke boy” any more if anything of the sort ever happened again. Then she was given dinner with all the nice parts left out and sent to bed for two solid hours. It was a thing that happened to one quite often in those days.
