sillies they must be in India then!" cried Bunny
contemptuously. "Why, I have not been asleep in the day for
years--not since I was quite small," and she rattled away more
noisily than ever at the door-handle.

"Miss Kerr is not there, children," said a housemaid who passed
along the passage at that moment, "she has been in the drawing-room
all the morning."

"Has she?" said Bunny, "oh, then, I tell you what, Mervyn, we'll
just go in and wait for her. She will be sure to come up in a few
minutes to wash her hands before dinner, and then we'll tell her."

"Oh, but there is Sophie calling to us to get ready ourselves. She
will be awfully angry if we don't go," said Mervyn. "Listen how she
is screaming."

"Never mind her, the nasty, cross old thing!" cried Bunny, opening
the bed-room door. "Come in, Mervyn, come in! There is Sophie--do be
quick, or she will catch us and drag us off with her--and then
she'll tell Miss Kerr before we do. Come in, come in," and once more
she hurried her cousin along with her, against his own will and
inclination.

"But, Bunny, I do think we ought to go to Sophie, I do indeed," said
Mervyn; "listen, she is asking the housemaid if she has seen us
anywhere. And oh, she is coming here to look for us--she will be
awfully cross! Do let us go into the nursery quietly and take off
our things and get ready for dinner."

"Well, you are a silly, Mervyn! That would spoil all the fun. But I
know what I'll do--I'll lock the door, and then Sophie will not be
able to get us. I can easily open it for Miss Kerr when she comes
up," cried Bunny; and before Mervyn could say a word to prevent
her, the little girl turned the key in the lock, and, clapping her
hands with delight, danced up and down the room singing at the top
of her voice:

"What a good plan! What a good plan!
And the dinner is in the frying pan!"

"Indeed, then I wish it was here," grumbled Mervyn, "I'm awfully
hungry, and it would be much better to go down to dinner now, and
tell Miss Kerr afterwards, or at dinner-time, Bunny, indeed it
would."

"Yes, and let Sophie hear her scolding us," cried the little girl.
"I am hungry too, I can tell you, Mervyn; but Miss Kerr won't be
long, I am sure. Hasn't she got a pretty room? and doesn't the sea
and the bridge look nice from the window?"

"Well enough," answered Mervyn crossly, as he rolled about in
an arm-chair that stood away in the furthest corner. "But oh,
it is silly to b