"Dreamikins!" whispered Daffy as she passed.
Then they went through a glass door to the garden, and found Fibo expecting them. He was in his chair under the trees, but he was not drawing; he was smoking his pipe and reading a newspaper. He greeted them with a smile.
"Very pleased to see you. The letter worked all right, didn't it?"
"Yes," said Freda. "It was very nearly a miss though, for we got our clothes in a mess this morning. It's so impossibly difficult to keep clean if you're enjoying yourself."
"We must all try hard this afternoon, or you won't be allowed to come and see me again."
The little girls' tongues wagged fast, they seemed to have so much to tell him—all about the Dower House one day becoming their home, and how Bertie was going to turn them out.
"I can't imagine him daring to do it," said Daffy reflectively. "Why, he's so small, we can do anything to him now. He quite looks up to us, and of course we make him do whatever we tell him. I don't see how he'll ever be so beastly as to tell Mums and us to go out of the house."
"I shouldn't worry about that. Perhaps you'll be queens in castles of your own by that time."
"Yes," said Freda eagerly, with shining eyes; "that's just it. Anything—anything might happen. Such crowds of beautiful things are in front of us!"
"My next beautiful thing is to see Dreamikins," said Daffy softly. "When do you think she'll come?"