"And is that Mrs. Dennison's note?"
"Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies."
"But how came it in your possession?"
She eyed me a moment sideways, then broke forth as if some grand thought had just seized upon her.
"Now, I'll make a bargain with you, Miss Hyde. If you'll just persuade my mistress, or Miss Jessie, to buy me half a dozen sheets of that straw-colored paper, I'll tell you all about it."
"But what can you want of primrose paper, Lottie,—you that never write letters?"
"No; but I may take to writing poetry; who knows?"
She said this with a twinkle of the eye that provoked me. How on earth had that creature got hold of my secret weakness?
"It isn't at all likely that you'll want paper for that purpose, Miss Lottie."
"Miss Lottie—Miss! Well now, I have always said that if there was a genuine lady, and no nonsense in this house, it was you, ma'am. Even my mistress hasn't got up to that mark—Miss Lottie! Wouldn't that look beautiful on a yellow note like this? Miss Lottie—"