"Depends on what 'tis," returned Alan grudgingly. "One is better than nothing, so go ahead."
Katharine gathered up her work under the light shawl which lay across her shoulders, and went away out of the room. Presently she came back again, with a pile of something soft and red in her arms.
"There now!" she said, shaking out the folds with conscious pride. "This is our grandest secret of all. It's a dressing-gown for Bridget, and we girls have cut and made it ourselves, every stitch. It's well made, too; you can look, if you know enough to judge."
"We!" echoed Polly. "Katharine has done 'most all of the work."
Alan eyed it critically.
"I say, that's something worth having," he remarked. "I wish I was Miss O'Finnigan; I know that color would be becoming to me, and it's so soft and warm." And before the girls could guess his intention, he had slipped on the long, loose garment, and was parading up and down the room in it, with all the airs of a young peacock.
"Tell me some more," he implored them; "tell me what you were doing when I came in."
"Never!" said Jessie sternly. "You know more now than you deserve.
You'll have to wait for the rest."
"A whole week?" groaned Alan. "I never can stand it. Never you mind, though; I know one thing you don't, and I was going to tell you, and now I shan't. It's something awfully nice, too, and it's about Christmas."
"Tell me, Alan," said Katharine. "You know I showed you this, so it's only fair you should let me be the one to hear your secret."