"Stop!" cried Edmund; "you haven’t said your prayers; hurry up!" Both boys knelt down by the bed, side by side, while Herrick watched their bowed heads with solemn interest. "Why don’t you begin?" she asked impatiently after a minute’s silence. "I’ve _done_," Edmund announced cheerfully, arising from his knees, when Montagu followed suit and rushed downstairs. "But you didn’t say anything." "We don’t say prayers out loud. It’s only very little children say them out loud." "Oh!" she said, as though suddenly enlightened. "Umpy dear says his very loud, but Mr. Woolykneeze looks into his hat like a grown-up genpleman; you can’t hear a fing." "But," Edmund objected, "one hasn’t always got a hat in the morning," and opening Mr. Wycherly’s door a very little, he called through: "I say, Guardie, do you always say your prayers into a hat?" "Really, Edmund," said poor Mr. Wycherly, much perturbed by this second interruption, "I do so dislike doors being opened while I am shaving, especially when as in this instance——" Edmund banged the door. "I’m sure he doesn’t," he said confidently. "He can’t, for his hat’s downstairs. P’raps that Mr. What’s-is-name you mentioned has a special kind." "Mr. Woolykneeze has hundreds of hats," Herrick announced magnificently. "What a lot of room they must take up," said Edmund, much impressed. "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." "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.