“Well, let’s wait, anyhow; it’s only till to-morrow,” said Gretta, “and won’t it be too simply lovely to see auntie again!”
It was difficult to “keep” the surprise from Sybil for even one day; particularly as she was looking so grave just now, Margot thought, and after consultation with Gretta, she decided on dealing out a tiny piece of excitement to her younger cousin as a kind of tonic.
“Hallo, Sybil!” she said, meeting the damsel alone in the cloak-room that afternoon; “I’ve hardly spoken to you for days.”
“I don’t _want_ to talk to you,” said Sybil, head-in-air, and very distant and grown-up in manner; “you’re not half as nice as I used to think you were, Margot, before you came back from Australia. First you won’t keep your promise and go to the ‘Little House’ with me; and, now, you just put on airs and eat feasts in your old dormitory, although you’re only six months older than me!”
“It isn’t _my_ fault that I’m in that dormer,” began Margot, still good-humouredly. “Nurse put me in it; and I _didn’t_ promise to go to the ‘Little House’ with you, Sybil. I only said I’d think about it. You’d much better be glad you didn’t go, instead of being so cross about it, because you might have been most awfully frightened, I know.”
“Who says I’m _not_ going?” inquired Sybil, flouncing round angrily. “And who says we’re not going to have a feast? You and Gretta can walk about talking secrets, but I’ve got a secret, too.”
“Well, I’d meant to tell you part of ours,” Margot flared up at her irritating small cousin; “and now I’ve a good mind not to! Gretta!” she called, as her elder cousin opened the cloak-room door. “Here’s Sybil being a perfect baby! I can’t _help_ being cross with her!”
“What! With auntie coming to-morrow!” The joyous sound in Gretta’s voice showed that her words were true.
“Oh, if _that’s_ your secret!” Even the head-in-air Sybil unbent at the news. She pranced round the cloak-room in joy, hockey-stick in hand. Such, indeed, was the magic of Mrs. Fleming’s name that in five minutes, everything forgotten except that to-morrow would bring Auntie Tib, the three were off to the hockey-ground as gaily as though moods and mysteries had never been!
[Illustration: “‘_Long Jake_--why, it _is_ you!’ cried Margot.” (See page 150.)]