"W-w-what'll happen, s'pose?"
"I don't know," answered Kate, slowly. "Something dreadful ought. For before it was Aunt Eunice's secret the box was my secret, too. I was the first who should have told it, and only to her. You had no right to speak of it till I gave you leave."
"Un-un-uncle Mose broke his bones, and I h-h-had to go 'round, didn't I? An' when I told about him the o-o-other j-j-j-just slipped out itself. T-t-t-that's all."
"Humph! 'All!' And more mischief done than you or I can guess, maybe. For though I can't imagine why Aunt Eunice should be so overcome and anxious at sight of just a box, there must be some good reason. She has seen that box before and it doesn't suggest pleasant memories to her. That's plain. She would have been glad if it had never been found, and all my pretty romance about treasure and helping people turns out just horrid. I wish I had never gone to that wood, then things wouldn't have happened. The box would have stayed in its hole, I wouldn't have hurried home with it by the long wrong way and met you, and poor Uncle Moses wouldn't have followed nor fallen over that root. Aunt Eunice would have been like the saying, 'Where ignorance is bliss,' and wouldn't have been worried so, and we shouldn't have been forbidden to tell things that I wouldn't have cared to tell, if I hadn't been forbidden. And, oh, dear! What a terrible hard world it is! and what a lovely old barn! I think—Do you suppose I could climb up that hay-mow? Susanna's sure there are hens' nests 'stolen' up there, and she needs the eggs. I wish we could find them. I wish we could do something—anything that is pleasant and so helps us to 'forget,' as Aunt Eunice wished us to do. But I guess I can't climb much. I never had a chance to try."
"I'll s-s-show you!" cried the lad, eagerly, and delighted to think there was something in which he could excel this clever city girl. With a bound he had risen from the floor, where both had sat during the last of their talk, had promptly spit upon his palms and rubbed them together, then leaped to catch an upright beam. "Shinnying" up to the slippery mow with real agility, he there paused and regarded Katharine with an expression of great pride. But instead of admiration her mobile countenance expressed only disgust, and to his question, "H-h-how's that?" she retorted: "Nasty, dirty thing! You go wash your hands before you touch a single one of our eggs!"
"'O-o-our' eggs!" repeated Monty, scornfully, to hide his own chagrin. "H-h-how long since th-th-they were 'ours'?"
"Oh, dear! Do come down and wash, and let's quit quarrelling. Seems as if we never could agree about things, yet we must. We've got to be friends if we have to keep Aunt Eunice's secret, for even though you did tell it before it was hers you needn't make it worse and speak of it again. If anybody asks you about it now, all you must do is to keep perfectly still. Not say a word. Let them think what they please, but don't you talk. Now, isn't there any other way to go upon the hay except by that beam? The Widow Sprigg said she was going up there herself soon as she got time, and I'm sure she doesn't do what you did."
"C-c-couldn't do it with—out," asserted the climber, referring to the moistening operation.
"I mean she would never 'shinny' up a straight, slivery beam."
"Huh! I s'pose there's a l-l-lad-der, do for g-g-girls," asserted Montgomery, indifferently.