Grandmamma looked just a little grave.
'I am not very fond of secrets,' she said. 'And Helena has never had any.'
'Oh yes, I have, grandmamma,' I said. I did not mean to contradict rudely, and I don't think it sounded like that, though it looks rather rude written down. 'I had one this time last year—don't you remember?—about your little stamp case.'
Granny's face brightened up. It did not take very quick wits to put two and two together, and to guess from what I said that the secret had to do with her birthday. And Sharley was too anxious for grandmamma not to be vexed, to think about her having partly guessed the secret.
'Ah, well!' said granny, 'I think I can trust you both.'
'Yes, indeed, you may,' said Sharley. 'There's nothing about mischief in it, and the only secrets mother's ever been vexed with me about had to do with mischief.'
'Sharley dressed up a pillow to tumble on Pert's head from the top of his door, once,' said Nan in her slow solemn voice, 'and he screamed and screamed.'
'It was because he was such a boasty boy, about never being frightened,' said Sharley, getting rather red. 'But I never did it again. And this secret is quite, quite a different kind.'
I felt very eager for the next French day, as we called them, to come, to hear what Sharley had thought of. I told Kezia about it, and then I almost wished I had not, for she said she did not know that grandmamma would be pleased at my talking about her birthday and 'such like' to strangers.
I think Kezia forgot sometimes how very little a girl I still was. I did not understand what she meant, and all I could say was that the three girls were not strangers to me. Afterwards I saw what Kezia was thinking of, she was afraid of the Nestors sending some present to grandmamma, and that, she would not have liked.