"I'm not sayin' as we air or ain't," yet the speaker gave a most gloomy shake of her head along with the noncommittal answer.
"But you act like something serious was the matter."
"I can't well help showin' what's on my mind, I suppose."
"Then why on earth don't you say what's troubling you?"
"When you're told a thing, an' then told positively not to tell it, how is a person to do?" asked Mrs. Brown in dire perplexity. Her pledge to the Squire was already beginning to weigh heavily upon her.
"I don't see why you hesitate to tell me," said Sally emphatically; "I'm not a child that can't be trusted with a secret."
"I don't see the harm myself in your knowin' it," acknowledged her mother, "and that, too, when you'd be sure to find it out in a mighty little while, for as soon as the guards come, you'd know that somethin' was wrong."
"The guards?" echoed the girl. "Then it's something about the raiders?"
"I didn't say," answered her mother with exasperating evasiveness.
"But it is," cried the girl. "Surely I've quite as much right to know as you. Don't it concern me equally as much?"