Fee's face lighted up, and he opened his big eyes at me,—I know he was delighted; and it seemed to me that Phil's surprised "No! is that so?" did not sound very sorry.
"Oh, hurry in, do!" Nora said impatiently. "I've kept the secret all the afternoon,—until we had a chance to talk quietly together,—and now it is just burning my lips to get out. Come, Jack, you, too."
XVII.
NORA'S SECRET.
TOLD BY JACK.
OF course that brought us into the drawing-room in double-quick time. Fee threw himself full-length on a lounge; Phil sat on a chair with his face to the back, which he hugged with both arms; I took the next chair,—the biggest in the room; and pulling over the piano stool, Nora seated herself on that, and swung from side to side as she spoke to the different ones.
For a minute she just sat and smiled at us without a word, until Phil said: "Well, fire away! We're all ears."
"Who do you think has been here to-day?" began Nora.
Phil rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, and he and Felix both answered very solemnly, and at the same moment:—