"Well, you must know some time," said Miss Bird, "and to say that you will ask the servants is not the way to behave as you know very well and I am the proper person to come to."
"Well, we have come to you," said Joan, "only you wouldn't let us in. Now tell us. Has Cicely run away?"
"Really, Joan, that is a most foolish question," said Miss Bird, "to call it running away to visit Walter and Muriel her own brother and sister too as you might say and that is all and I suppose it is that Hannah who has been putting ideas into your head for I came in to see you last night and you knew nothing but were both in a sweet sleep and I often think that if you could see yourselves then you would be more careful how you behave and especially Nancy for it is innocence and goodness itself and a pity that it can't be so sleeping and waking."
"I've seen Joan asleep and she looked like a stuck pig," said Nancy. "But what has happened, starling darling? Do tell us. Has Cicely just gone up to stay with Muriel? Is that all?"
"It is very inconsiderate of Cicely," said Miss Bird, "nobody could possibly have objected to her going to stay with Muriel and Miles would have packed her clothes and gone up to London with her to look after her and to go by herself without a word and not take a stitch to put on her back and Mr. Clinton in the greatest anxiety and very naturally annoyed for with all the horses in the stable to walk to Bathgate in this heat for from Kencote she did not go one of the men was sent there to inquire I wonder at her doing such a thing."
"Keep the facts in your head as they come, Joan," said Nancy. "She didn't tell anybody she was going. She didn't take any clothes. She walked to Bathgate, I suppose, to put them off the scent."
"But whatever did she do it for?" asked Joan. "Something must have upset her. It is running away, you know. I wish she had told us about it."
"We'd have gone with her," said Nancy. "She must have done it for a lark."
"Oh, don't be a fool," said Joan. This was one of the twins' formulæ. It meant, "There are serious things in life," and was more often used by Joan than by Nancy.
"Joan how often am I to tell you not to use that expression?" said Miss Bird, "I may speak to the winds of Heaven for all the effect it has don't you know that it says he that calleth his brother thou fool shall be in danger of hell fire?"