Rowles stooped down and gave the old gentleman the ticket for the lock, and then the two boats passed out into the open stream. The lock-keeper went indoors to ask if dinner was ready.
"Quite ready," was Mrs. Rowles's cheerful reply. "Call the children in, will you, Ned?"
He went out by the backdoor into the garden, and saw how the sky was clouding up from the south-west. "Rain coming; bring on the scarlet-runners and the marrows. Phil-lip! Emil-ly! Jule-liet! Come in to dinner."
Then Philip appeared, hot and tired from digging; and Emily came with some needlework at which she had been stitching in the intervals of watching her brother. The holidays had begun, and they were thoroughly enjoyed by these children.
"And where is Juliet?"
"I don't know," answered Emily.
"Well, you must bring her in. Mother says dinner is quite ready."
"I think she must be in our bed-room," and Emily went upstairs to seek her cousin, and to wash her own dusty little hands.
But Juliet was not in the attic.
"Then she must have gone into the lodgers' rooms," said Mrs. Rowles.