The two made a journey to town together, and came back laden with sundry parcels; and notwithstanding all this business, Henry found time to be very industrious in weeding the flower-beds, for which my father paid him so much an hour—­and I noticed that he was uncommonly punctual in presenting his bills.  Without being very penetrating, we discovered that the scheme, whatever it might be, was one that required a great deal of time, a great deal of shopping, and a great deal of money.  We racked our brains in vain, and not a single mite of information could we extract from the boys; indeed, we might just as well have attacked two pine boards, for they pretended to be deaf as soon as we commenced our inquiries.  Ellen began to be afraid that they meditated living on some wild island, like Robinson Crusoe, for she had seen Charles privately appropriate a hatchet, and a ball of twine; and I inclined to the opinion that they were both going to sea, and represented to Ellen how delightful it would be to have them making voyages and bringing us shells, and corals, and all sorts of curious things.  But I was the greatest philosopher of the two, for my more timid playmate cried bitterly at the idea; and it was sometime before I could succeed in pacifying her.

We one day discovered the boys in an old barn on the premises; and waiting patiently near by until we saw them depart on some errand to the house, we perceived, to our great joy that the door was unfastened; and effecting a hasty entrance, we expected to be almost as well rewarded for our trouble as was Blue-beard’s wife on entering the forbidden chamber.  But nothing could we see except a few old boxes turned upside down, and along one side a neat row of shelves.  We perceived indeed that the small window now contained four panes of glass, and we also discovered two or three little shelves there.  But here our discoveries ended; there was nothing to account for all the labor and privacy that had been going on for the last two or three weeks,—­and quite in despair, we returned to the house before the boys discovered our prying.

Things continued in this state for sometime longer; and finding that all our efforts at discovery were not rewarded with the slightest success, we assumed an appearance of proud indifference, and pretended to be as much occupied with our dolls and baby-houses as they were with their barn.  Now and then one of the boys, in the tantalizing spirit of mischief, would thrust a parcel under our very eyes, exclaiming at the same time:  “Wouldn’t you like to see the inside, though?  Confess, now, that you would give your very ears to know what’s in it!”

“Indeed, and we would not!” in great indignation, “not we!  We supposed that it was some boys’ nonsense not worth talking about, and were quite occupied with our own affairs, without troubling ourselves about them.”

In a tone that sounded very much as though he were in earnest, Charles would continue:  “Suppose, Henry, that we let them know what it is, if they promise not to tell—­shall we?”