“It’s a pro—some kind of a secret.”
“Humph! You’re precocious!” said Octave, half vexed.
“I ain’t no such a thing!”
“That doesn’t mean anything bad, Fritzy darling. It means that you are an unusually smart boy. See?”
“Oh, yes; I knew that. Abry-ham and Rosetta and all of ’em says that,” answered the little lad, complacently.
“Fritz, your vanity is great.”
“You tell me and I’ll tell you,” said the child, returning to the subject dearer to him just then than his own perfections.
“Fritz, if I would tell anybody, it would be you. But I cannot; I’ve promised, and I wouldn’t break my word. I’m sure you couldn’t ask that, little brother.”
“No,” said Fritz, gravely, with sober memories of that dreadful time when he broke his own word, and so nearly forfeited his right to be a gentleman.
“But, if you haven’t promised there is no reason why you should not tell me how Aunt Ruth heard what I did. I’m sorry, for I don’t want to worry her, even if I am all right in what I have done, and she will be proud of me when it is all over.”