"They do," said Herrick, "rooms and rooms."
"Is yon Mr. Woolykneeze a relation?" Edmund asked.
Herrick looked thoughtful. "Not exactly," she said slowly, "but he's a dear fend."
"How many pairs of trousers has he?"
Here was a poser. Herrick was not yet very familiar with the science of numbers. "I've not seen them all," she said cautiously; "he wears different ones every day. Let's come downstairs," she added quickly lest he should ask more inconvenient questions. "You may show me the garden till bretfus is ready if you like."
By the time Mr. Wycherly came down, six places were laid for breakfast and Mrs. Dew had cooked three extra portions of bacon and eggs. She rang the bell loudly and the boys with little Herrick came in from the garden.
"Perhaps you'd better run along to the King's Arms, Edmund, and tell my nephew and his wife that breakfast is ready," said Mr. Wycherly. "I thought, my dear," he added, turning towards Herrick, "that you said your father and mother had come. I hope they haven't gone away in despair because none of us were down."
Herrick looked up at him with candid, forget-me-not blue eyes.
"No," she said gravely, "I never said they'd come for they didn't."
"But you did!" Montagu exclaimed. "You said, 'We've all three come' when you first came upstairs."