“What is it?” asked Dinah.
“It’s a secret!” answered Flossie, with a smile. “Bert and Nan aren’t around, are they?”
“No, they aren’t ’round now,” replied the cook.
“I’m glad of that,” said Flossie, with a sigh of relief as she tossed her tangle of golden curls back out of her eyes. “I don’t want any of them to know until we are at the table this evening.”
“What’s it all about?” asked Dinah, more from habit by this time than because she expected to be told. “Is it a game, honey lamb?”
“Sort of!” laughed Flossie. “But it’s more of a secret!”
“Um! Yeah! I could guess dat part ob it!” chuckled Dinah. “It suah am a secret!”
She watched Flossie slip quietly out into the back hall and heard the little girl opening the small closet under the stairs, where all sorts of odds and ends were kept.
With a silent laugh, which shook her big, fat body as a bowl of jelly is shaken when it is placed on the table, the colored cook went on with her kitchen work. Soon she heard the voice of Bert as he went down the front stairs and out of the front door.
“Ah guess Nan didn’t ketch him,” murmured Dinah.