"Yes, then the servants will be able to keep their eyes on it, and see it is not interfered with. Oh, Bob, I cannot help thinking that the boy next door may know how the hutch got overturned yesterday, for he's always watching us! At any rate, I shall ask him; there can be no harm in doing that."
"I should not have anything to say to him, if I were you," advised Bob; "but please yourself, of course."
Thus it came about that whilst Tim, who was feeling much bored with his own company and was very dispirited, was doing a little gardening by way of passing the time after tea that evening, he heard himself addressed by Kitty's now familiar voice:
"Hi, you boy—I don't know your name—I want to speak to you."
The hoe with which he was working dropped from Tim's hands, so startled was he, and the expression of his face was one of alarm as he looked around hastily; but he could not see the little girl, though he ran his eyes from end to end of the partition wall.
"Here I am," she said, with a merry laugh as she observed his bewilderment. "Why, you seem quite scared," she continued. "Don't you see me? I'm in the apple tree."
There she was sure enough, perched high on a branch of the big apple tree at the bottom of her own garden, from which position she could overlook Mr. Shuttleworth's domain.
"Oh," exclaimed Tim, "now I see you. I couldn't think where your voice came from."
A smile, which was rather embarrassed, though certainly not unfriendly, flickered over his plain, freckled countenance as he spoke.
"I want to speak to you for a minute about something important," said Kitty.