"So we have," she said. "Mr. Woolykneeze and Umpy dear and me; not mummy and daddie. I 'spect this is him now," as a loud knock and ring came at the front door.
And sure enough it was William Wycherly, so relieved to see his daughter safe that he forgot altogether to scold her for running away.
Margaret, thinking her husband was in charge of Herrick, had not hurried down and he, returning to the empty coffee-room, concluded that Herrick had been fetched upstairs by her mother. It was not till Margaret came down that they discovered she had apparently vanished into space. William instantly fell into a panic and was for summoning a detective at once, when Margaret calmly interposed with the suggestion that he should first look for his daughter in his uncle's house. After considerable explanation which included the important personalities of Mr. Woolykneeze and Umpy dear, William was fain to go back to the King's Arms without his daughter, and Herrick sat at Mr. Wycherly's right hand, raised high in her chair upon a dictionary and Cruden's Concordance, and had breakfast all over again "wivout a bib" as she joyfully announced. The blue smock also bore testimony to that fact when the meal was over. The extra bacon and eggs were not wasted; Montagu and Edmund consumed the lot.
By the time breakfast was over it was nearly ten o'clock, and Edmund went to the front door to look for Jane-Anne. Sure enough she was there waiting in a doorway just down the street. Jane-Anne saw him and came out from her doorway, advancing rather timidly.
"Where's Aunt Martha?" she whispered.
"Upstairs, making beds," Edmund answered, "so we can't go to the attics, but you can come into the garden. There's only one room looks out into the garden and that's Guardie's study. He's gone there now so Mrs. Dew won't be in that."
"Are you sure?" Jane-Anne whispered again. "She'd be awfully vexed if she saw me."
"Come on. That kid is here and she can't stop long for we're all going out on the river. Hurry up if you really want to see her."
Jane-Anne came in sideways, as though by that means she made herself less conspicuous.
Herrick and Montagu were standing on the lawn under an apple tree, looking at some trumpet daffodils that were growing at its root. Herrick, very gently, was lifting each yellow bell to look inside it.