“Cook,” said Elfrida, on a sudden impulse, “can you keep a secret?”
“Can’t I?” said the cook. “Haven’t I kept the secret of how furmety’s made, and Bakewell pies and all? There’s no furmety to hold a candle to mine in this country, as well you know.”
“We don’t know anything,” said Elfrida; “that’s just it. And we daren’t let granny know how much we don’t know. Something’s happened to us, so that we can’t remember anything that happened more than an hour ago.”
“Bless me,” said the cook, “don’t you remember old cookie giving you the baked apple-dumplings when you were sent to bed without your suppers a week come Thursday?”
“No,” said Elfrida; “but I’m sure you did. Only what are we to do?”
“You’re not deceiving poor cookie, are you now, like you did about the French soldiers being hid in the windmill, upsetting all the village like you did?”
“No; it’s true—it’s dreadfully true. You’ll have to help us. We don’t remember anything, either of us.”
The cook sat down heavily in a polished arm-chair with a patchwork cushion.
“She’s overlooked you. There’s not a doubt about it. You’re bewitched. Oh, my pretty little dears, that ever I should see the day——”
The cook’s fat, jolly face twisted and puckered in a way with which each child was familiar in the face of the other.