Half an hour ago, mother called me away to a private conference, exciting thereby a mighty curiosity not unmixed with envy in my brethren.
Our colloquy is ended now, and I am reentering the school-room.
"Well, what was it?
out with it," cries Algy, almost before I am inside the door again.

Algy is sitting more than half--more than three-quarters out of the window, balancing himself with great nicety on the sill.

He is in the elegant _neglige_ of a decrepit shooting-jacket, no waistcoat, and no collar.
"What have you been doing to your face ?" says Bobby, drawing nigh, and peering with artless interest into the details of my appearance; "it is the color of this" (pointing to a branch of red rhibes, which is hanging its drooped flowers, and joining its potent spice to the other flower-scents).
"Is it ?" I answer, putting both hands to my cheeks, to feel their temperature.

"I dare say! so would yours be, perhaps, if you had, like me, been having a--" I stop suddenly.
"Having a _what_ ?" "I will not say what I was going to say," I cry, emphatically, "it was nonsensical!" "But what _has_ she told you, Nancy ?" asks Barbara, who, enervated by the first hot day, is languishing in the rocking-chair, slowly see-sawing.

"What could it have been that she might not as well have said before us all ?" "You had better try and guess," I reply, darkly.
"I will not, for one," says Bobby, doggedly, "I never made out a conundrum in my life, except, 'What is most like a hen stealing ?'" "It is not much like that," say I, demurely, "and, in fact, when one comes to think of it, it can hardly be called a conundrum at all!" "I do not believe it is any thing worth hearing," remarks the Brat, skeptically, "or you would have come out with it long ago! you never could have kept in to yourself!" "Not worth hearing!" cry I, triumphantly raising my voice, "is not it?
That is all _you_ know about it!" "Do not wrangle, children," says Algy from the window; "but, Nancy, if you have not told us before the clock gets to the quarter" (looking impressively at the slowly-traveling hands), "I shall think it right to--" What awful threats would have followed will never now be certainly known, for I interrupt.
"I _will_ tell you! I _mean_ to tell you!" I cry, excitedly, covering my face with my hands, and turning my back to them all; "only do not _look_ at me! look the other way, or I _cannot_ tell you." A little pause.
"You have only three minutes, Nancy." "Will you _promise_," cry I, with indistinct emphasis from under my hands, "none of you to _laugh_--none, even Bobby!" "Yes!"-- "Yes!"-- "Yes!" "Will you _swear_ ?" "What is the use of swearing ?--you have only half a minute now.