Nan almost fell off the arm of Leigh’s chair at this, and the fudge plate tilted precariously. “I should think it did!” she cried.
While the girls laughed, Jean dimpled and rose to take the fudge plate from Nan, passing it around once more. Placing the plate upon the mantel, she continued:
“‘It isn’t best to tell our name yet,’ I said to Billy. ‘It’s sort of secret, too’.”
“I should say so!” gasped Leigh.
“Sh-sh,” said Phoebe. “Let Jean tell it.”
“Billy said much the same thing, Leigh,” laughed Jean. “He said, ‘Yes it is!—’cause you haven’t any!’
“‘I’ll tell you the initials,’ I said,—thinking awfully fast, girls! But I couldn’t seem to think of a thing but ‘Busy Bees’ or ‘Happy Hearts’ or something like that. Just then we passed a sign that said ‘S. P. Smith,’ so I tossed my head a little and said, ‘They’re S. P. What do you think of that, now?’ I was getting in deeper and deeper, you see.”
“‘H’m,’ he said, ‘what are you going to do?’
“‘That,’ I said, ‘is sort of a secret, too. You never heard of a secret society that told everything, did you? We may tell our name later, though.’
“‘It won’t be long,’ Billy said.