"Oh yes, Hilda. I won't say a word about it, I promise."
"That's a good boy. Now put away the work-box quickly, just as you found it, and don't tell Miriam even that you were playing with it." She kissed him, and slipped the deed into her dress. Dicky put back the trinkets and replaced the box.
She felt she could rely on the boy's not betraying her, and she congratulated herself on the success of her plan. She could hear Miriam in the drawing-room now. Hurriedly she picked up a copy of the Strand Magazine which Dicky had been looking at and gave it to him.
"We must go to tea, Dicky. Come along, bring your book with you."
At that moment Miriam called.
"That boy's simply crazy about pictures," said Hilda, as she entered the room. "I can't get him away from them." She looked at Dicky hard. He seemed to understand—it was to him all part of a glorious surprise for Miriam. And the element of secrecy appealed to him irresistibly.
"What's he got—the Strand Magazine?" said Miriam, catching sight of the well-known cover. "Oh, that's Gerald's—he's never happy without his Strand."
"It is an awfully jolly magazine, Miss Crane—I wish mother would get it."
"Ah, here is Gerald," exclaimed Hilda, as at that moment he entered the room. "Speak of angels and you hear their wings."
"That's dangerously suggestive of another phrase more often applied in the same circumstances—and rather more apt in this case too, I fancy!"