Events, after the church-ordeal, as Arrietty had begun to call it, calmed down quite a bit. After her rather embarrassing outburst towards Spiller, in Peagreen's place, she slowly walked back home. The small egg, wrapped up in her dress, a shrewd reminder of how ungrateful she had been towards the one who always provided them with bits and bobs; who even saved their lives and provided them with homes. She should never have said something to poor Spiller; accusing him of not following through on a promise.

Peagreen was absolutely right, Spiller never broke a promise and she was horrible for implying he would. In particular for a person such as Spiller, one who is hardly seen by a borrower, let alone a human bean; how could she have been so cruel?

Her remorse became worse by the hour, especially when a whole day passed by without so much of a glimpse of the stealthy borrower.

She always missed him when he was away, but for the first time she became scared he would not return. It would be her fault and she cried bitter tears in bed that night.

***

The next few days she would climb up the box hedge and sit for hours, looking, longing to see the familiar bow and quiver.

Easter came and went. Lots and lots of people visited the church and it's magnificent flower display. Borrowing was a real treat in those days because so many people were bound to drop things.

She found a practically new, leather glove for her father to make shoes out off; wrapped candy of which they hacked off bits to suck on. Timmus discovered a comb he dragged all the way to his house and it soon served as a coat rack.

And of course there were the eggs: brightly painted with little flowers and birds. Others were decorated with stripes and dots and a few were completely blue, red and yellow.

The children of the village came looking that first Easter day and every borrower was safely hidden indoors as the children were very diligent in their search. One time the family even saw a round face, with golden curls, eyes alight and tongue peeping out of the corner of his mouth, very close by the grating. Arrietty had seen the hand that had put the blue egg near the mossy brick a few hours earlier and her father had told her to wait with the borrowing. He had learned about Easter from uncle Hendreary and knew they were not to touch the eggs until after, when the grown-ups would have done the second search, for leftover eggs.

The blue egg would have been an easy borrowing and she was sorry to see it go; flying up in the grubby hand of the squealing boy. Instead, later that evening, as the people went home for dinner and the birds ventured out to sing their evening songs, Arrietty found one, painted lovingly with white daisies in a green field. They were all sad to break it and carefully she salvaged a few shell-shards. Pod polished the sharp edges so the pieces became round as plates. With a little of the resin, Arrietty fastened the plate-like circles with their artistic flowers against her bedroom wall, right above the head of her bed. Now, every night, before going to sleep, she would see the lovely paintings.

Little did she know that her beloved treasures were made by her old friend Miss Menzies. How much more cherished would they have been, had she known.

***

Spiller did not return the second Easter day, when, again, loads of visitors trampled the path up to the church. Nor did they see him the day after that, when it was only Mrs. Whitlace to water the flowers, and go about business as usual.

At dinner, she voiced her concern, but Homily was too busy mulling over a new recipe aunt Lupy had given her and Pod told his daughter not to worry. It wasn't the first time Spiller disappeared for days, nor, so he said airily, would it be the last.

Arrietty daren't tell them about what she'd said. The horrible words she had uttered, that came back to haunt her each time a noise announced something other than the arrival of a clearly missed friend.

Oh, how she longed to apologize, to take back the words spoken in grief. How she rehearsed and repeated lines to say to him if he ever did return.

She became terribly quiet, to a point where even Timmus asked if something was the matter. She could not tell him.

Peagreen, the only one who knew what had befallen between the two, remained silent on the matter, for which she was grateful; yet, on the eve of the fifth day, as she sat on the edge of her bed, with a tear-stained face, she confided at last in her mother.

Homily, worried about her normally so enthusiastic daughter, had taken it upon herself to find out what bothered the girl. So that evening she prepared a nice cup of tea from a few scraps of dried camomile from the larder. She gave Pod a look and stepped through the door to Arrietty's little room. 'Summer Poems on Irish Green Hills', it said on the front, with bright blue curls in all corners. It swung without a sound open and shut and allowed the bearer of the somewhat large miniature teacup to enter without having to use her hands.

When Arrietty failed to look up, Homily sat down on the bed beside her, handed her the cup and said: "There, there, now dear, what's the matter? You have been out of sorts all these past days. Do tell me what ails you, child."

And then and there, Arrietty bowed her head; her falling tears adding a little salt to the tea. She sobbed and explained the whole thing to her mother.