"No more, than always," returned her mother. "Why are you so impatiently following me up, Nan? What is it? Can't you tell me now?"
Nan glanced at Mitty and the washerwoman who were eating their breakfast. "It's a secret," she said in a low tone, "a very important secret."
Mrs. Corner smiled. Nan's secrets were not usually of great importance except in her own estimation. "Well, I shall be in my room as soon as I give out the meal and sugar; you can come to me then, if you can't tell me here. Suppose you pass the time away in looking up Jack. It is about time she was getting into mischief again. She always chooses Monday morning for some sort of escapade; I suppose keeping bottled up over Sunday is too much for her."
"I'll go see where she is," agreed Nan. "She won't be painting the fence this time, I know."
Jack was discovered before a tub in the wash house. In the absence of Ginny, the washerwoman, at breakfast, she had seized the opportunity of taking her place and was about to plunge her best muslin frock into the water with the stockings and underwear when Nan came upon her. "Jacqueline Corner, what are you up to now?" cried Nan, snatching the frock from her.
"I'm just helping Ginny to wash," replied Jack with her usual air of injured innocence when discovered under such circumstances.
"You were just helping Landy when you wasted the paint and ruined your blue frock," said Nan sarcastically. "Walk yourself right out of here. Ginny is perfectly capable of doing the washing without your assistance. Besides that lawn frock doesn't go in with black stockings; a pretty mess you'd make of it. Ginny won't thank you for mixing up her wash when she's sorted it all out. Try your energies upon something you know about, young lady."
Jack flung herself away. "You're always saying I mustn't do this and I mustn't do that," she complained. "You're a regular old cross-patch. You're not my mother to order me around."
"Mother sent me to see after you, so there," returned Nan. "I'm next to mother, too, for I'm next oldest. Where's Jean?"
"I don't know and I don't care," returned Jack, sullenly.