“Well, like what?”

“Like you’d been up to something—­and weren’t quite sure how the grown-ups were going to take it,” Patience explained from the rug before the fire.

“How do you know I have been writing—­anything?” Pauline asked.

“There, you see!” Patience turned to Hilary, “she doesn’t deny it!”

“I’m not taking the trouble to deny or confirm little girl nonsense,” Pauline declared.  “But what makes you think I’ve been writing letters?”

“Oh, ’by the pricking of my thumbs’!” Patience rolled over, and resting her sharp little chin in her hands, stared up at her sisters from under her mop of short red curls.  “Pen!  Ink!  Paper!  And such a lot of torn-up scraps!  It’s really very simple!”

But Pauline was on her way to the dining-room.  “Terribly convincing, isn’t it?” Her tone should have squelched Patience, but it didn’t.

“You can’t fool me!” that young person retorted.  “I know you’ve been up to something!  And I’m pretty sure father doesn’t approve, from the way you waited out there in the hall just now.”

Pauline did not answer; she was busy laying the cloth for supper.  “Anything up, Paul?” Hilary urged, following her sister out to the dining-room.

“The barometer—­a very little; I shouldn’t wonder if we had a clear day to-morrow.”

“You are as provoking as Impatience!  But I needn’t have asked; nothing worth while ever does happen to us.”

“You know perfectly well, Pauline Almy Shaw!” Patience proclaimed, from the curtained archway between the rooms.  “You know perfectly well, that the ev’dence against you is most in-crim-i-na-ting!” Patience delighted in big words.

“Hilary,” Pauline broke in, “I forgot to tell you, I met Mrs. Dane this morning; she wants us to get up a social—­’If the young ladies at the parsonage will,’ and so forth.”

“I hate socials!  Besides, there aren’t any ‘young ladies’ at the parsonage; or, at any rate, only one.  I shan’t have to be a young lady for two years yet.”

“Most in-crim-i-na-ting!” Patience repeated insistently; “you wrote.”

Pauline turned abruptly and going into the pantry began taking down the cups and saucers for the table.  As soon as Hilary had gone back to the sitting-room, she called softly, “Patty, O Patty!”

Patience grinned wickedly; she was seldom called Patty, least of all by Pauline.  “Well?” she answered.

“Come here—­please,” and when Patience was safely inside the pantry, Pauline shut the door gently—­“Now see here, Impatience—­”

“That isn’t what you called me just now!”

“Patty then—­Listen, suppose—­suppose I have been—­trying to do something to—­to help Hilary to get well; can’t you see that I wouldn’t want her to know, until I was sure, really sure, it was going to come to something?”

Patience gave a little jump of excitement.  “How jolly!  But who have you been writing to—­about it, Paul!”