'"Uneasy! But why uneasy? My dear Henrietta, if you had refused to promise, what difference would it have made? What could you have done?"
'"I don't quite know, but I felt as if I had no right to hide such a very serious piece of news as that. It seemed to me that I ought, in strict right, to let my father know of it."
'"Henrietta!" cried Bessie, aghast. "But you could not have done it; Madame would never have allowed that!"
'"No, I do not know that I could have managed it; but I might have tried. I fear I did wrong in making any promise, after all. Remember, Bessie, this is a terribly important matter: it is the beginning of a rebellion—of a civil war."
'"But, Henrietta," I asked, "won't your father join the Duke of Monmouth, then? Bessie says she is sure her uncle will. Oh, how I hope my father will, too! And, ah! poor Oliver, I know how he will long to be off to the Duke's army, and how he will try to persuade mamma that he is old enough." Henrietta smiled, and pulled my curls.
'"No, Francis, I hope your father will do no such thing; and I am quite sure that mine will not. However, happen what may now, my father, and the King, and everybody else too, knows what is going on, and can take whatever course they please; so I am content. I can do neither good nor harm in the matter now."
'"No," sighed Bessie: "if we were only men! But, as it is, we can do nothing to help the Duke, nothing whatever, except to pray that the right side may have the victory."
'"The right side," murmured Henrietta thoughtfully. "Yes, Bessie, we can pray for the right side."
'Now that our tongues were free once more, Bessie and I were ready enough to astonish the other girls with the history of our adventure three days ago; and great was the excitement and interest with which they listened to it.
'"I knew there was something!" "So that was why you all three vanished for such a long time?" "I thought Bessie squeezed up her lips unusually tight, as if she was afraid something was going to escape them." "I wondered why Frances had been looking so solemn and important lately." Such were the exclamations with which our story was greeted,—exclamations that rather hurt my feelings, and Bessie's too, I think, for we had prided ourselves upon behaving exactly the same as usual, and not looking in the least bit conscious or mysterious.