"Ye-es, I think so, miss. But oh! miss, I want to speak to you badly."
Fatty came forward with the smile still on her lips. "Has Mrs. Tucker been scolding you dreadfully, you poor Fanny?"
"Then she's told you?" gasped the girl.
"She's told me nothing. I haven't seen her, but you look so woebegone that I thought she had been having a pitch battle with you for neglecting something or other, and you wanted me to get you out of the scrape."
Fanny groaned inwardly. No, her aunt had said nothing, and she must brace herself up, and tell the whole story from beginning to end. The beginning, she began to think, was not so dreadful as the end. Oh that she could dare to disbelieve her eyes, and declare that there was no end—no awful, uncanny end!
At length, in the quiet of the verandah, the story was told, and Fanny's heart misgave her more and more as she observed the exceeding gravity of her young mistress's bright face as the story neared its finish. When the finish did come, Patty's face was more than grave; the weight of responsibility was on her, and to young, unused shoulders that weight is particularly difficult to bear.
"Come and show me where it is," was the only remark she made, but Fanny noticed that the red lips had lost some of their bright colour, and the pink in the soft cheeks was of a fainter tinge than when she had first seen her.
Without making the slightest sound, without one click of the handle, Fanny opened the door, and Patty looked in. Her courage came back with a bound. Fanny was a goose, there was nothing to be alarmed about.
She looked up to smile encouragingly at Fanny, when the smile froze on her lips, for Fanny's face was livid. Without a word she beckoned her young mistress out of the room, and as softly as before closed the door. Then, turning to her, she whispered through her set teeth:
"It has moved again!"