Rebecca rapped on the door a little timidly, and when Mrs. Horton opened it and said smilingly: “Why, here is the very girl I have been wanting to see. Come right in, Rebecca Flora,” she was rather startled.
“Lucia is not very well,” Mrs. Horton continued, “and she has been saying that she must, must see Rebecca Flora; so it is most fortunate that you have arrived. Some great secret, I suppose,” and Mrs. Horton smiled pleasantly, little imagining how important the girls’ secret was. Her two elder sons, boys of fifteen and seventeen, were on the Polly with their father, and she and Lucia were often alone.
Rebecca had but stepped into the house when she heard her name called from the stairway. “Oh, Rebecca, come right up-stairs,” called Lucia, and Mrs. Horton nodded her approval. “Yes, run along. ’Twill do Lucia good to see you. I cannot imagine what ails her to-day. I saw one of the O’Brien boys passing just now, and he tells me their liberty tree has been found and brought to shore!”
“Oh!” exclaimed Rebecca in so surprised a tone that Mrs. Horton laughed. “’Twould have been full as well if the tree had been allowed to drift out to sea,” she added in a lower tone.
Rebecca went up-stairs so slowly that Lucia called twice before her friend entered the chamber where Lucia, bolstered up in bed, and with flushed cheeks and looking very much as Rebby herself had looked an hour earlier, was waiting for her.
“Shut the door tightly,” whispered Lucia, and Rebecca carefully obeyed, and then tiptoed toward the bed.
For a moment the two girls looked at each other, and then Lucia whispered: “What will become of us, Rebecca? Mr. O’Brien told Mother that the men were determined to find out who pushed the liberty tree afloat, and that no mercy would be shown the guilty. That’s just what he said, Rebby, for I heard him,” and Lucia began to cry.
“But the tree is found and brought back,” said Rebecca, “and how can anyone ever find out that we did it? No one will know unless we tell; and you wouldn’t tell, would you, Lucia?”
Lucia listened eagerly, and gradually Rebecca grew more courageous, and declared that she was not at all afraid; that is, if Lucia would solemnly promise never to tell of their creeping down to the shore and cutting the rope that held the tree to the stake.
“Of course I never would tell,” said Lucia, who was now out of bed and dressing as rapidly as possible. “I wasn’t ill; but I stayed up-stairs because I was afraid you might tell,” she confessed; and then Rebecca owned that she had felt much the same. “But I had to take a big bowlful of bitter thoroughwort tea,” she added, making a little face at the remembrance.