Then I remembered that I had forgotten to take my dose of magic seed, and I hastened to do it, although I was beginning to lose faith in it.  I had not grown a single bit, by the merciless testimony of the hall door.

I took the box of seed out of my trunk in the twilit room and swallowed the decreed pinch.  As I did so, Dan’s voice rang out behind me.

“Beverley King, what have you got there?”

I thrust the box hastily into my trunk and confronted Dan.

“None of your business,” I said defiantly.

“Yes, ’tis.”  Dan was too much in earnest to resent my blunt speech.  “Look here, Bev, is that magic seed?  And did you get it from Billy Robinson?”

Dan and I looked at each other, suspicion dawning in our eyes.

“What do you know about Billy Robinson and his magic seed?” I demanded.

“Just this.  I bought a box from him for—­for—­something.  He said he wasn’t going to sell any of it to anybody else.  Did he sell any to you?”

“Yes, he did,” I said in disgust—­for I was beginning to understand that Billy and his magic seed were arrant frauds.

“What for?  Your mouth is a decent size,” said Dan.

“Mouth?  It had nothing to do with my mouth!  He said it would make me grow tall.  And it hasn’t—­not an inch!  I don’t see what you wanted it for!  You are tall enough.”

“I got it for my mouth,” said Dan with a shame-faced grin.  “The girls in school laugh at it so.  Kate Marr says it’s like a gash in a pie.  Billy said that seed would shrink it for sure.”

Well, there it was!  Billy had deceived us both.  Nor were we the only victims.  We did not find the whole story out at once.  Indeed, the summer was almost over before, in one way or another, the full measure of that shameless Billy Robinson’s iniquity was revealed to us.  But I shall anticipate the successive relations in this chapter.  Every pupil of Carlisle school, so it eventually appeared, had bought magic seed, under solemn promise of secrecy.  Felix had believed blissfully that it would make him thin.  Cecily’s hair was to become naturally curly, and Sara Ray was not to be afraid of Peg Bowen any more.  It was to make Felicity as clever as the Story Girl and it was to make the Story Girl as good a cook as Felicity.  What Peter had bought magic seed for remained a secret longer than any of the others.  Finally—­it was the night before what we expected would be the Judgment Day—­he confessed to me that he had taken it to make Felicity fond of him.  Skilfully indeed had that astute Billy played on our respective weaknesses.

The keenest edge to our humiliation was given by the discovery that the magic seed was nothing more or less than caraway, which grew in abundance at Billy Robinson’s uncle’s in Markdale.  Peg Bowen had had nothing to do with it.

Well, we had all been badly hoaxed.  But we did not trumpet our wrongs abroad.  We did not even call Billy to account.  We thought that least said was soonest mended in such a matter.  We went very softly indeed, lest the grown-ups, especially that terrible Uncle Roger, should hear of it.