"Very well, if it's nothing—" Mrs. Mathew tore open the note.
Before she could so much as unfold it, Genie had plucked it out of her hand and fled upstairs.
Half way to the top she leaned over the bannisters. "If you tell I'll remember it all my life. If you don't I'll love you for ever and ever."
"You're a very silly child. And I'm not at all sure I won't speak to your mother."
"But I am!" the coppery head was hung ingratiatingly over the hand rail.
Aunt Josephine was already thinking of matters more important than a school girl's foolishness. "How long has that man been here?"
"Oh, hours and hours!" said Genie, accepting the diversion with due gratitude. "He stays longer and longer."
"Humph! that's what I think!" Aunt Josephine stalked into the drawing-room.