"Well, I must beg to differ from Umpy dear. We said we'd call about ten, and it won't be ten for an hour and a half yet. I must write some letters, and you must amuse yourself somehow while I do it. What toys will you have?"
"I'll look out of the window, sank you," Herrick remarked with dignity, and climbed upon a chair that she might see over the wire blind.
Her mother gave one amused glance at the small offended back turned towards her and went upstairs to get her writing-case.
William Wycherly, seeing his daughter apparently engrossed in her inspection of the street, strolled to the bureau to look up trains, for they were to leave that afternoon.
No sooner was he out of sight than Herrick, muttering something to the effect that "Mr. Woolykneeze knows they're waiting," scrambled down from the chair and tip-toed out to the hall and thence into the street.
No one saw her, for none of the other sojourners at the King's Arms were down, and at that moment there was not even a waiter in the hall.
It was a perfect April morning. The sun shone clear and warm, and a shy, caressing wind lifted Herrick's curls and turned them to a haze of golden floss as she stepped daintily to the pavement and looked up street and down street carefully. Then, as fast as her sturdy legs would carry her, she ran till she reached Mr. Wycherly's gabled house.
But there she was met by a difficulty, for she could reach neither knocker nor bell. For a moment she stood undecided in the doorway, but she was not lacking in resource. She couldn't quite see into the windows but she could reach them with her hand. She selected that on the left-hand side of the door and tapped on the glass. No response; evidently there was no one in that room.
She tried the other. Still no one came to see who was there.
A passing boy, who noted her efforts, inquired good-naturedly: "Want to get in, missie?"