"May we play in that garden if there's nobody there?" asked Gerald.
"Why should you want to play there?" said grandpapa. "It does not belong to me."
"And I'm sure we couldn't have a nicer garden than our own, and it's very big too," said I.
"We may go anywhere we like in our garden, mayn't we?" said Gerald.
"Yes," said grandpapa.
"And if we could get through the door in the wall, we might, mightn't we?" Gerald continued in his slow, drawly way. He speaks better now, but then he had a way of going on once he began, all in the same tone so that you really hardly noticed that he was talking. I have thought since that grandpapa didn't in the least know what he was consenting to, when for the second time he replied "yes."
Gerald would have gone on, no doubt, but Tib interrupted him.
"Does that door lead into a tool-house, grandpapa?" she said. Her voice was soft and gentle. It was only I that had a quick, sharp way of speaking.
"A tool-house?" repeated grandpapa, "oh, yes, I fancy so." He must have thought that Tib was asking him if there was a tool-house in the garden.
"Oh," she said in a rather disappointed tone. There wasn't much mystery about a tool-house!