“Would it suit me?” said Sibyl. “Oh Fanny, it sounds like heaven! I don’t know what I wouldn’t do—I don’t know what I wouldn’t do to become a member of that club.”
“And Martha West would second any suggestions I made,” continued Fanny. “Of course I don’t know that I could get you in; but I’d have a good try, provided you help me now.”
“Fanny, what is it you want me to do?”
“I want you, Sibyl, to use your intelligence; and I want you, all alone and without consulting any one, to find out where Betty Vivian has put the treasure which she told you was a piece of wood and which she hid in the old oak stump. You can manage it quite well if you like.”
“I don’t understand!” gasped Sibyl.
“If you repeat a word of this conversation I shall use my influence to have you boycotted in the school,” said Fanny. “My power is great to help or to mar your career in the school. If you do what I want—well, my dear, all I can say is this, that I shall do my utmost to get you into the club. You cannot imagine how nice it is when you are a member. Think what poor Betty has lost, and think how you will feel when you are a Speciality and she is not.”
“I don’t know that I shall feel anything,” replied Sibyl. “Somehow or other, I don’t like this thing you want me to do, Fanny.”
“Well, don’t do it. I will get some one else.”
“And, in the second place,” continued Sibyl, “even if I were willing to do it, I don’t know how. If Betty chooses to hide things—parcels or anything of that sort—I can’t find out where she puts them.”
“You can watch her,” said Fanny. “Now, if you have any gumption about you—and it is my strong belief that you have—you will be able to tell me this time to-morrow something about Betty Vivian and her movements. If by this time to-morrow you know nothing—why, I will relieve you of the task, and you will be as you were before. But if, on the other hand, you help me to save the honor of a great school—which is, I assure you, at the present moment in serious peril—I shall do my utmost to get you admitted to the Speciality Club. Now, I think that is all.”