"Asleep!" exclaimed Bunny indignantly. "She isn't a baby, and she isn't ill, so why should she be asleep at this time of the day?"
"Well, in India people sleep in the day when they're not a bit ill, just because it's hot—so why shouldn't they here?"
"What a lot of sillies they must be in India then!" cried Bunny contemptuously. "Why, I have not been asleep in the day for years—not since I was quite small," and she rattled away more noisily than ever at the door-handle.
"Miss Kerr is not there, children," said a housemaid who passed along the passage at that moment, "she has been in the drawing-room all the morning."
"Has she?" said Bunny, "oh, then, I tell you what, Mervyn, we'll just go in and wait for her. She will be sure to come up in a few minutes to wash her hands before dinner, and then we'll tell her."
"Oh, but there is Sophie calling to us to get ready ourselves. She will be awfully angry if we don't go," said Mervyn. "Listen how she is screaming."
"Never mind her, the nasty, cross old thing!" cried Bunny, opening the bed-room door. "Come in, Mervyn, come in! There is Sophie—do be quick, or she will catch us and drag us off with her—and then she'll tell Miss Kerr before we do. Come in, come in," and once more she hurried her cousin along with her, against his own will and inclination.
"But, Bunny, I do think we ought to go to Sophie, I do indeed," said Mervyn; "listen, she is asking the housemaid if she has seen us anywhere. And oh, she is coming here to look for us—she will be awfully cross! Do let us go into the nursery quietly and take off our things and get ready for dinner."
"Well, you are a silly, Mervyn! That would spoil all the fun. But I know what I'll do—I'll lock the door, and then Sophie will not be able to get us. I can easily open it for Miss Kerr when she comes up," cried Bunny; and before Mervyn could say a word to prevent her, the little girl turned the key in the lock, and, clapping her hands with delight, danced up and down the room singing at the top of her voice:
"What a good plan! What a good plan!
And the dinner is in the frying pan!"