2 The boys come home – and Kiki!
　　That day and the morning of the next the two girls spent in exploring their holiday home. It wascertainly a tiny place, but just big enough for them. There was a large old-fashioned kitchen and atiny parlour. Above were three small bedrooms.
　　‘One for Mother, one for you and me, Lucy-Ann, and one for the boys,’ said Dinah. ‘Mother’sgoing to do the cooking and we’re all to help with the housework, which won’t be much. Isn’t ourbedroom sweet?’
　　It was a little room tucked into the thatched roof, with a window jutting² out from the thatch¹. Thewalls slanted³ in an odd fashion, and the ceiling slanted too. The floor was very uneven⁴, and thedoorways were low, so that Dinah, who was growing tall, had to lower her head under one or twoin case she bumped it.
　　‘Spring Cottage,’ she said. ‘It’s a nice name for it, especially in the springtime.’
　　‘It’s named because of the spring that runs down behind it,’ said her mother. ‘The water startssomewhere up in the yard of the castle, I believe, runs down through a tunnel it has made for itself,and gushes⁵ out just above the cottage at the back. It runs through the garden then, and disappearsdown the hillside.’
　　The girls explored the spring. They found where it gushed⁶ out, and Dinah tasted the water. Itwas cold and crystal clear. She liked hearing the gurgling sound it made in the untidy little garden.
　　She heard it all night long in her sleep and loved it.
　　The view from the cottage was magnificent. They could see the whole of the valley below, andcould follow too the winding⁷ road that led up to their cottage. Far away in the distance was therailway station, looking like a toy building. Twice a day a train came into it, and it too looked likea toy.
　　‘Just like the railway engine and carriages that

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