Tilly thought, and, flushing scarlet as she thought, she burst out,—­

“Well, I don’t care, I don’t care.  I’m not going to talk about it, either.  How many people have you—­has Amy—­has Agnes told?”

“I haven’t told anybody but you yet.  I’ve just come from Agnes.”

“Yet!  Now, look here, let me tell you something, Dora.  My father, you know, is a lawyer, and I’ve heard him talk a great deal when we’ve had company at dinner about queer things that people did and said,—­queer things, I mean, that got them into lawsuits.  One of the things that I particularly remember was a case where a woman told things that she had heard and things that she had fancied against a neighbor, and the neighbor went to law about it, prosecuted the woman for slander, and they had a horrid time.  The woman’s daughters had to go into court and be examined as witnesses.  Oh, it was horrid; and the worst of it was that even though there was some truth in the stories, there were things that were not true,—­exaggerations, you know,—­and so the woman was declared guilty, and her husband had to pay a lot of money to keep her out of prison.  There was ever so much more that I’ve forgotten; but I recollect papa’s turning to us children at the end, and saying, ’Now, children, remember when you are repeating things that you have heard against people, that the next thing you’ll know you may be prosecuted for what you’ve said, and have to answer for it in the law courts.’”

Dora looked scared.  “Well, I’m sure,” she began, “I haven’t repeated this to anybody but you; and if Agnes—­”

“What’s that about me?” suddenly interrupted Agnes herself, as she came up behind the two girls.  Dora began to explain, and then called upon Tilly to repeat her story of the lawsuit.

“Oh, fiddlesticks!” cried Agnes, angrily, after hearing this story; “you can’t frighten me that way, Tilly Morris.  We can’t be prosecuted for telling facts that are already in the newspapers.”

“But we can be for what isn’t.  It isn’t in the newspapers that this Mrs. Smith and her niece are these Smithsons.”

“Well, Tilly Morris, I should think it was in the newspapers about as plain as could be.  What do you say to this sentence?” And Agnes pulled from her pocket the Smithson article she had cut out, and read aloud:  “’An older child—­a daughter of fourteen or fifteen—­was left behind in this country with Smithson’s brother’s widow, who has also taken the name of Smith.  They are staying at a summer resort not far from Boston;’ and what do you say to that letter addressed to some place in South America?”

“I say that—­that—­all this might mean somebody else, and not—­not these—­our—­my Smiths.  What did your mother say when you told her, and showed the paper to her?”

“I didn’t tell her; I didn’t show her the paper.  We never tell mamma such things; she is a nervous invalid, and it would fret her to death,” Agnes responded snappishly.