"May I tell Aunt Sophy about the bandbox chock-full of funny things pushed under the bed?"
Penelope danced a few feet away. She then stood in front of her sister and began to sway her body backwards and forwards.
"I see'd," she began, "such a funny thing!"
Miss Tredgold was seen approaching. Penelope looked round at her and then deliberately raised her voice.
"What is it, Pen? Why are you teasing your sister?" said Miss Tredgold.
"I aren't!" cried Penelope. "I are telling her something what she ought to know. It is about something I---- Shall I go on, Paulie?"
"No; you make my head ache. Aunt Sophy, may I go in and lie down?"
"Certainly, my dear. You look very pale. My poor child, you were over-excited yesterday. This won't do. Penelope, stop teasing your sister, and come for a walk with me. Pauline, go and lie down until dinner-time."
Pauline went slowly in the direction of the house, but fear dogged her footsteps. What did Penelope know, and what did she not know?
Meanwhile Miss Tredgold took the little girl's hand and began to pace up and down.
"I have a great deal to correct in you, Pen," she said. "You are always spying and prying. That is not a nice character for a child."
"I can be useful if I spy and pry," said Penelope.
"My dear, unless you wish to become a female detective, you will be a much greater nuisance than anything else if you go on making mysteries about nothing. I saw that you were tormenting dear little Pauline just now. The child is very nervous. If she is not stronger soon I shall take her to the seaside. She certainly needs a change."
"And me, too?" said Penelope. "I want change awful bad."
"Not a bit of you. I never saw a more ruddy, healthy-looking little girl in the whole course of my life."
"I wonder what I could do to be paled down," thought Penelope to herself; but she did not speak her thought aloud. "I mustn't tell Aunt Sophy, that is plain. I must keep all I know about Paulie dark for the present. There's an awful lot. There's about the thimble, and--yes, I did see them all three. I'm glad I saw them. I won't tell now, for I'd only be punished; but if I don't tell, and pretend I'm going to, Paulie will have to pay me to keep silent. That will be fun."