When Dot awoke next morning, after a fitful few hours’ sleep, it was nine o’clock. She sprang out of bed and hurried through her dressing, certain that her father was considerately waiting his breakfast rather than disturb her, late though the hour was. But upon entering the kitchen, she found that he had not yet been about. This fact at first astonished, then filled her with alarm. She ran to his door and rapped sharply, calling him, and experienced a feeling of deep relief when she heard him yawn out a reply.
Nevertheless, as she walked back into the kitchen and began scraping the ashes out of the grate, she reflected on the usual circumstance of Lemuel oversleeping; for not in many years—and then only on the several rare occasions that they had been out late together the night before,
