Nurse seized the key.
"Jane, sit them on those chairs till I come back."
The little culprits were taken to the day-nursery. Jane seated Bertie at the breakfast-table, then went to fetch the porridge.
"Freda, do you think she'll find him in bed?" whispered Daffy from her high-backed chair.
"I don't care if she does," said Freda, with hot angry cheeks. "I hope he'll kick her."
Nurse was a long time coming back. They heard her hasty steps along the passage, and voices and doors opening and shutting. Then they heard their mother's voice calling to Purling, and their hearts quaked and thumped.
"They've found him asleep," said Daffy, "and now they're wondering who he is. Oh, Freda, I do wish we hadn't done it."
Shortly afterwards the door opened and Jane came in with the porridge. She looked very excited. Behind her was Nurse, and their mother, with her hair braided down her back, and clad in her blue silk dressing-gown.
"Here they are, ma'am, and it beats me how they dare to do such things! There's nothing they won't be up to, but when it comes to harbouring thieves and vagabonds, then I say nothing but a sound whipping will do them any good!"
"Freda and Daffy, get down from those chairs. Now what do you know about this? Somebody has been sleeping in one of our spare rooms; he has left this behind him, but taken away a good many things that did not belong to him. The gardener says he met an old tramp coming down from the house at six o'clock this morning, and he told him he had been sleeping at the house as a guest!"