“What did they do, Faith?” she demanded.
Faith told the story of the walk to the fort; of the disagreeable manner of both Caroline and Catherine toward her, and of their disappearance as soon as they were inside the fort. But she did not tell of her efforts to find them, nor of Nathan Beaman’s appearance.
“They are hateful things!” Louise declared, “but it won’t be long before they’ll go to Albany with their father. Oh!” she ended a little fearfully. “I ought not to have told that. It’s a secret,” she added quickly.
“No, it isn’t. They told me,” answered Faith, “and if it were a secret I shouldn’t want to know it. I hate and despise secrets.”
Louise looked at her friend with a little nod of comprehension. “That’s because you have a secret,” she said.
“How did you know, Louise?” and Faith wondered if it were possible Louise could know about the blue dress.
“I know,” said Louise. “It’s dreadful to know secrets. I can stay all night. My father has gone to the fort. Oh!” and again she put her hand over her mouth. “I ought not to have told that. He doesn’t want any one to know.”
Faith leaned back against the sofa with a little sigh of discouragement. It seemed to her there was nothing but secrets. She wished she was with her mother and father in her pleasant cabin home, where everybody knew about everything.
“Where’s ‘Lady Amy’?” asked Louise, quite sure that such a beautiful doll would comfort any trouble. And her question made Faith remember that Louise was a guest.
“I’ll get her,” she said, and in a few moments “Lady Amy” was sitting on the sofa between the two little friends, and Faith was displaying the new dresses that Aunt Prissy had helped her make for the doll.