Little Lucy nodded gravely.
“If my new cousin Content ever says anything to you again—I heard her yesterday—about her big sister Solly, don't you ever say a word about it to anybody else. You will promise me, won't you, little Lucy?”
A troubled expression came into little Lucy's kind eyes. “But she told Lily, and Lily told Amelia, and Amelia told her grandmother Wheeler, and her grandmother Wheeler told Miss Parmalee when she met her on the street after school, and Miss Parmalee called on my aunt Martha and told her,” said little Lucy.
“Oh, shucks!” said Jim.
“And my aunt Martha told my father that she thought perhaps she ought to ask for her when she called on your mother. She said Arnold Carruth's aunt Flora was going to call, and his aunt Dorothy. I heard Miss Acton tell Miss Parmalee that she thought they ought to ask for her when they called on your mother, too.”
“Little Lucy,” he said, and lowered his voice, “you must promise me never, as long as you live, to tell what I am going to tell you.”
Little Lucy looked frightened.
“Promise!” insisted Jim.
“I promise,” said little Lucy, in a weak voice.
“Never, as long as you live, to tell anybody. Promise!”