“Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough briar,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
We’ll have to follow everywhere,
If Sara’s laughter we would snare. 
I will go and lead the van,
You may follow if you can. 
Sara’s would be an awful plight
To go home laughterless tonight.”

Then he sprang from the stump and went rushing straight down the little dim path, shouting back over his shoulder, “Come along, all of you!  Sara, ask the Plynck to come, too!”

Down the path they went tumbling—­the Snimmy, his wife, a crowd of Gunki, and all the dolls.  Sara and the faithful little Teacup stayed behind to see if the Plynck would come, and the Snoodle was still asleep.

“Will you come with us, dear Madame Plynck?” asked Sara, softly, looking up into the tree; and “Do you think you could stand it?” fluttered the Teacup solicitously.

“It’s against my rules to leave the Garden,” said the Plynck, and Sara’s heart sank; for she really thought the search would be a sort of picnic, and she had hoped that the lovely Plynck would go, too.  It sank clear to the bottom of the pool, and the Plynck’s Echo fished it up and handed it back to her, all wet and shiny, just as the Plynck finished her sentence, “So I think I’ll go.”

Sara clapped her hands, and to add to her pleasure she heard just then the most delicious crashing sound:  the kind of sound she had imagined when she stood at the top of the basement steps at home with the glass pitcher in her hands, wishing she could hurl it down upon the cement because Mother would not let her wear her new short-sleeved dress.  She saw at once that the Plynck had broken the largest rule she had, and dropped it upon the pile at the foot of the tree; and now she was moving her plumes softly for flight, so that the golden spice was falling in Sara’s hair.  The Teacup was looking intensely pleased and flustered, and both of them had forgotten the poor Echo, who was scrambling about the rim of the pool like a swimmer trying to draw himself out of the water by a slippery bank.  When she saw Sara looking at her, however, she stopped trying, and sat down stiffly in her usual place.

“I can’t go, of course,” she said with dignity, “but go ahead—­don’t mind me.”

“Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry!” said the Plynck, hovering over her softly.  “I wish you could!”

“Go ahead,” said the Echo, trying hard not to look sulky and virtuous; and so Sara ran down the path after the others, with the Plynck and the Teacup fluttering gracefully over her head.  As she passed through the hedge she cast a backward look at the Garden, which was now so still that she thought it looked like a picture in a dream—­shimmering and bright and clear, without a soul left at home but the Plynck’s cerulean Echo and the sleeping Snoodle.