Nurse bestirred herself.
"She's a mischievous child, I fear. There's such daring in her eye; but it won't do for her to come to harm here."
So Nurse went from room to room, and then at the end of one of the passages thought of a little door which led into the cistern-room. There were steps up inside, and on these steps was a white hair ribbon.
Nurse got agitated, and called aloud, and a weak little voice answered her:
"I'm nearly drownded, but Cherubine is keeping me up."
Sure enough, in the big cistern, drenched to the skin, Dreamikins was clinging with her hands to the top; her feet were on a tiny ledge that mercifully was inside, or the big cistern would indeed have drowned her. She had clambered in, taken off her shoes and stockings, and imagined that the water was not very deep.
"I was so hot, I wanted to paddle. I thought it was a little pond, and then I splashed down ever so far, but I got up again and held on tight and screamed, and I've screamed away all my voice, but Cherubine helped me."
She was certainly exhausted with her wetting and with fright. Nurse got her out with a stern set face, and carried her off to the night-nursery, where she changed all her clothes, gave her a hot drink, and then took her back to her little friends.
"Now, none of you are to leave this room," she said. "It's a mercy we haven't had a death in this house, and it isn't this child's fault that we haven't!"
Dreamikins sat still for five minutes whilst she explained to the others how she had come to be found in such a situation.