"Well, you are going to promise now, aren't you?"
"No, Val, I have come to suggest something. If you will come over to one of the other rooms and hide, I will help you all I can. Aunt Caroline would not find you if you were in one of the other rooms—the one next to mine, for instance. Even that does not seem quite right, but it is better than being here. I have been thinking it over, and I am sure it is not right to have you here when Aunt Caroline told me never to come into this room again, and I actually had to go to her desk to steal the key. Will you come to one of the other rooms?"
"No. It has got to be this room or none. I might just as well go sit in the parlor as be in any room but this. Great Scott! how the fellows will laugh!"
"What fellows?"
"Never mind. Do you think I am going to tell you anything, Miss Spoilsport, Tattletale, and everything else?"
"Oh, Val, I am so sorry! I do want to help you!" Elizabeth was crying now.
"Oh, don't stand there blubbering! Go down and tell auntie all about it. How Val came and made you steal the key, and made you open the door, and made you do everything else. It was all his fault—oh yes!"
"Val, you are hateful!" cried Elizabeth, drying her eyes. "You know I am not that kind of a girl at all. I am sure I want to help you, and I want to know dreadfully why you came, but I know if I asked any one but you whether I ought to have let you into this room, they would say no. Mrs. Loring would, I know."
"And who is Mrs. Loring?"
"Patsy's mother."