“Rogers,” said Father briskly, “go telephone the Hill Grocery Company to pack up ten large baskets of apples and send them over to the office.  You go over and give them to the boys and cover up Miss Phyllis’s track effectually by a speech of presentation.  And remember, Rogers, that whatever Miss Phyllis says in my office is strictly business and is to be observed as absolutely confidential.”

As Rogers went out of the door I felt my heart sink in a queer way, and I turned to find Father looking at me sternly.

“Phil,” he said, in the tone of voice I feel sure fathers use to their errant sons, “if you have another person’s secret to guard, do it carefully and do not let the excitement of the moment make you let it slip.”

“Oh, Father,” I fairly gasped, “did I tell you anything about Mr. Douglass’s secret that I ought not?”

“You told about all you know, daughter; but fortunately you didn’t know enough to do much damage.  I happen to know I can trust Rogers as myself.  Now, go to your pie fixings, for I’m unusually busy.”

I turned to the door with a queer sinking feeling coming up in me when he called me back again.

“Of course, Phil, you know what a pleasure it is to me for you to shower apples on the Byrds and others, and I want to speak to you about a little matter that is troubling me and ask your help.  We have got to spend some money in Byrdsville, and you must help me to do it.  I can’t get Henri to buy his supplies for the kitchen here, under any circumstances—­he shrugs his French shoulders, gives me two uneatable meals, and orders from New York as usual.  I can’t very well wear Byrdsville clothes myself, and there seems no way to drop cash in the town unless you can find some way.  Buy things at all the stores and charge them to me.  Give away and use what you can, but buy.  We owe it to the town and we must do it.  Can you promise to take part of the job for me?”

“I’ll try, Father,” I answered doubtfully.  “I like the kind of clothes the girls wear, so I will get mine in the stores, and I can give presents to all who will allow it.”

“That’s it—­presents—­presents to your friends,” said Father in a relieved tone of voice, and I could see that he had no idea of the burden he had put on my shoulders.  “Now fade away, and let me work, kiddie.  You are all to the good!”

As I walked along home my heart was so heavy down in my toes that my feet almost stuck to the pavement—­not only about the task of spending the money, but about the secret.  However, I reasoned it up into my breast again.  If my father is one of the men that magazines write against and say is too rich to be good, he has always told me the truth; and when he said I hadn’t done the great secret any damage I believed him.  If he can trust Rogers as himself, I can, too.

But after this, when I know anything that all the world can’t know I’m going to wear a horsehair ring, like Belle makes Mamie Sue do, to remind me not to forget and tell.  I thought I was stronger-minded than that, but I see I’m not.  You see, leather Louise, I must be more trustworthy than just any girl; for if I’m untrustworthy, then it will be a tragedy, because it will prove that I inherited it and so be an evidence against Father in my own mind and the world’s too.