"Oh, but I can go much higher than these boughs by the wall!" interrupted Betty. "So high that my feet are where your head is now."
"That's not much," said Lewis scornfully. "Girls never can climb much. They just flop about, and catch their frocks in all the branches, and get giddy, and cry to be helped down again!"
Betty flushed hotly. "You are talking nonsense!" she shrieked. "Silly nonsense! I can climb much higher than John; and as for crying—"
Her remarks were promptly cut short by a hand being roughly pressed over her mouth. "Hold your tongue!" whispered Lewis. "Unless you wish old Mother Howard and her slave-drivers to be after us!"
At this terrible threat Betty looked nervously towards the brick house. But there was nothing to be seen in that direction except the quiet old cows in the orchard below. She was so reassured by seeing them chewing the cud, as if nothing dreadful could possibly happen, that she regained sufficient courage to remark defiantly that after all Mrs. Howard did not seem a very formidable person.
"That shows all you know about it!" replied Lewis. "I can tell you a very different tale. If you two will promise faithfully not to say a single word of what I tell you to anybody—not to Madge, or your nurse, or anybody,—then I will tell you something that nobody else knows. Only it's a secret, you must remember,—a dead secret."
This was very solemn work. Betty and John glanced at each other, both longing to know the secret, and yet a little afraid of the conditions that had been imposed.
"Mightn't we just tell Madge if she promises not to repeat it?" Betty ventured to say.
"Certainly not! We don't want Madge poking her interfering nose into everything, do we?" replied Lewis rudely. "Just make up your minds whether you want to hear a most terrible and extraordinary thing, or not, for I can't wait much longer. But if I don't tell you to-day I sha'n't breathe a word of it another time, so it's no good teasing me again."
This last remark decided Betty. She was very curious by nature, and could not bear to miss any piece of news that promised to be interesting.