Miss Arabella's cheeks were growing pale. "Yes, I'd better tell you. I'll have to if I—I leave it to you. Run out an' lock the door, Elsie—the back door, too, and bring Polly in. Somebody might come in an' see it."
Elsie obeyed, with a feeling of growing apprehension. She had evidently stirred up depths of which she had never dreamed. When she returned the invalid was half sitting up in bed, flushed with excitement. She pointed to the gay Red Riding-Hood upon the dresser. "There's a key behind her, just inside the wolf," she whispered. "It unlocks that bottom drawer, an' you hand me out what's there."
Elsie opened the drawer and took out a large parcel, done up in brown paper. Miss Arabella took it tenderly, and for a few moments lay smoothing it gently. Then, slowly and tremblingly, she untied the string and let a billow of sky-blue silk roll out upon the bed.
Elsie gave a little exclamation of admiration. "Oh, Arabella, what a lovely thing! It looks as though it had been intended for an old-fashioned wedding dress."
"That's just what it was for," whispered Arabella, with drooping head.
The girl looked at her for a moment, and then, with a woman's intuition, she divined the secret. She sank upon her knees again and put her arms about the shrinking little figure.
"Yours, Arabella?" she whispered. "Was it intended for you?"
Miss Arabella nodded. Her head went down on her friend's shoulder. The girl patted her lovingly, as though she had been a hurt child. "There, there, dear," she said soothingly, "tell me all about it. I won't tell, you know I won't."
"Do you promise, sure and certain, Elsie?" came the frightened whisper.
"Yes, sure and certain."