“What shall we do?” asked Nora. “I don’t feel like bathing or digging without Mike here.”
“Then you can just come and help me to wash up those breakfast things and make the beds and dust and get dinner ready!” said Dimmy briskly. “It will do you good to think of something else for a while.”
“It won’t,” said Peggy dismally. But Dimmy was right. Both girls felt much better about things when they set to work to wash up and to dust.
Dinner-time came. Peggy went up to fetch Jack. He was huddled in a corner with his magnifying-glass, trying to read every word of the old, old diary.
“Dinner-time,” said Peggy. “Have you found anything interesting, Jack?”
“No,” said Jack. “It’s all about how he goes birds’-nesting and fishing and boating. He must have been a nice sort of boy. He was a great one for playing tricks on people too. It says here how he put a toad into his aunt’s bed, and she woke the whole house up to get it out!”
“Naughty boy!” said Peggy. “And poor old toad! It must have hated being squashed under the bedclothes. What else does it say?”
“Oh, lots of things,” said Jack, flicking over the pages. “Tell Dimmy I’ll be down in half a minute. I just want to finish the next few pages.”
So Peggy went downstairs again, and Dimmy and the two girls began their meal without Jack. They were in the middle of it when they heard a tremendous shouting, and Jack’s feet came tearing down the stone staircase. The door into the kitchen was flung open, and then the dining-room door flew back with a crash. The girls almost jumped out of their skin. Dimmy leapt to her feet.
“Whatever’s the matter?” she cried.