“How late, Barbara?”
“Marry, not the fourth part of an hour gone, I left the child in the nursery a-playing with her puppet, when I went down to let in Hal Dockett, and carry him to see what ailed the black cow; and now I be back, no sign of the child is any whither. I have been in every chamber, and looked in the nursery thrice.”
“Where should she be?” quietly demanded Mr Avery.
“Marry, where but in the nursery, without you had fetched her away.”
“And where should she not be?”
“Why, any other whither but here and there,—more specially in the garden.”
“Nay, then, reach me my staff, Barbara, and we will go look in the garden. If that be whither our little maid should specially not be, ’tis there we be bound to find her.”
“Marry, but that is sooth!” said Barbara heartily, bringing the walking-stick. “Never in all my life saw I child that gat into more mischievousness, nor gave more trouble to them that had her in charge.”
“Thy memory is something short, Barbara,” returned her master with a dry smile, “’Tis but little over a score of years sithence thou wert used to say the very same of her father.”
“Eh, Master!—nay, not Master Walter!” said Barbara, deprecatingly.