They looked at each other silently, then at the Wicked Compact behind them. There did not seem any explanation needed.
"Another one dropped," murmured T.O. sighingly. But Laura Ann said nothing.
CHAPTER VI.
Laura Ann stole quietly away and went upstairs to the little attic room. Close by the window was a rough little easel arrangement with a picture on it. Laura Ann stood regarding it thoughtfully. "I wonder"—she smiled at the whimsy of the thought—"I wonder if it looks like Amelia," she murmured.
It was not a wonderful picture. No committee would have hung it on a "line." There were rather glaring errors in it of draughtsmanship and coloring. But the face of the girl in it was appealingly sweet—brown hair, blue eyes, little round chin. Laura Ann had not dared to put in the dimples.
"Dimples need a master," she said, "besides, they only show when you smile, and I don't believe Amelia smiles very often!"
She sat down and took up a brush. The picture was nearly done, but she found touches to be added here and there. There might be a stray lock—there, like that. And a little bit more shade under the chin, and the wistful droop of the mouth relieved, oh, a very little bit! Amelia looked so serious.
"Poor little thing! Well, it's a serious matter to be a dream-child, with not an ounce of good red blood in your veins."
Laura Ann meant to slip back after they had started for the station, on the last day, and hang the picture in the little sunny dining-room. She did not want the girls to know there was a picture. But still—a new thought had begun to obtrude itself unwelcomely. Was painting Amelia's portrait a breach, too, of the Compact? She had undertaken it as a little "offering" to Mrs. Camp, to show her own individual gratitude for her own share of the dear little green cottage all these beautiful weeks—T.O. had said Mrs. Camp had longed for a picture. But the fact that it had taken many patient hours of work "unto others," was not to be overlooked. If it had broken the rules of the Wicked Compact, and she went back to the B-Hive without letting the girls know of it—oh, hum! of course that would be another "wicked compact"! She would have to let them know—and she didn't want to let them know—oh, dear!