CHAPTER XII

SECRETS

"Did you see all the fort, and the guns, and the soldiers?" asked Donald eagerly, running to meet his cousin as she came slowly into the sitting-room. "Why, your hand is all scratched!" he added in a surprised tone.

Faith tried to cover the scratched hand with a fold of her skirt. Aunt Prissy noticed that the little girl wore her every-day dress.

"Didn't you wear your blue dress, Faithie?" and without waiting for an answer said: "Well, perhaps this one was just as well, for you might have hurt your blue dress."

Faith sat down on the big sofa thinking to herself that she could never be happy again. First, and worst of all, was the ruined dress.

Then the remembrance of the way she had been treated by Caroline and Catherine; and, last of all, her _secrets_!--every one a little more important and dreadful than the other. First the blue beads; then Nathan's knowledge of a hidden entrance to Fort Ticonderoga; and then the dress. She was so taken up with her unhappy thoughts that she did not realize she had not answered Donald, or spoken to her aunt, until Donald, who was standing directly in front of her, demanded: "What's the matter, Cousin Faith? Does your tooth ache?"

Faith shook her head. "I'm tired. I didn't have a good time at all. I don't like those girls," and, greatly to Donald's alarm, she put her head on the arm of the sofa and began to cry.

In an instant she felt Aunt Prissy's arm about her, and heard the kind voice say: "Never mind, dear child. Don't think about them."

After a little Aunt Prissy persuaded Faith to lie down and rest until supper time.

"I'll sit here with my sewing and keep you company," said Aunt Prissy.

"It's an hour to candle-light."

Donald tiptoed out of the room, but was back in a moment standing in the doorway and beckoning his mother; and Mrs. Scott went quietly toward him, closing the door softly behind her.

"It's those girls. The ones Faith went with to the fort," Donald explained in a whisper. "They're on the door-step."

Caroline and Catherine were standing, very neat and demure, at the front door.

"Has your little girl got home?" inquired Catherine in her most polite manner; "she ran off and left us," added Caroline.

"Faith is safe at home," responded Mrs. Scott in a pleasant voice.

"Why didn't you ask them to supper, mother? You said you were going to," demanded Donald, as he watched the sisters walk down the path.

"Your cousin is too tired for company," said his mother, who had planned a little festivity for Faith and her friends on their return, but had quickly decided that her little niece would be better pleased not to see the sisters again that day.

"All the more cake for us then," said Donald cheerfully, for he had seen a fine cake on the dining-room table; "there comes the shoemaker's girl," he added. "Shall you ask her to stay, mother?"

"Yes, indeed," and Mrs. Scott turned to give Louise a cordial welcome.

"Faith is resting on the sofa, but you may go right in, Louise. I know she will be glad to see you," she said, smiling down at the dark-eyed little girl. "When are you coming to make us another visit?"

"Father said I might stay all night if you asked me," responded Louise, who now felt sure that Mrs. Scott was her friend.

"We shall be glad indeed to have you, my dear. Let me take your cap and cape. And go in and cheer up Faithie, for I fear she has had an unhappy time," said Mrs. Scott.

Louise's smile faded. She had never had a friend until Faith Carew came to Ticonderoga, and the thought that any one had made Faith unhappy made her ready to inflict instant punishment on the offenders.

"Oh, Louise! I'm so glad it's you!" exclaimed Faith, as she heard the sound of Louise's crutch stubbing across the floor.

Louise sat down beside the crumpled little figure on the sofa.

"What did they do, Faith?" she demanded.

Faith told the story of the walk to the fort; of the disagreeable manner of both Caroline and Catherine toward her, and of their disappearance as soon as they were inside the fort. But she did not tell of her efforts to find them, nor of Nathan Beaman's appearance.

"They are hateful things!" Louise declared, "but it won't be long before they'll go to Albany with their father. Oh!" she ended a little fearfully. "I ought not to have told that. It's a secret," she added quickly.

"No, it isn't. They told me," answered Faith, "and if it were a secret I shouldn't want to know it. I hate and despise secrets."

Louise looked at her friend with a little nod of comprehension.

"That's because you have a secret," she said.

"How did you know, Louise?" and Faith wondered if it were possible Louise could know about the blue dress.

"I know," said Louise. "It's dreadful to know secrets. I can stay all night. My father has gone to the fort. Oh!" and again she put her hand over her mouth. "I ought not to have told that. He doesn't want any one to know."

Faith leaned back against the sofa with a little sigh of discouragement. It seemed to her there was nothing but secrets. She wished she was with her mother and father in her pleasant cabin home, where everybody knew about everything.

"Where's 'Lady Amy'?" asked Louise, quite sure that such a beautiful doll would comfort any trouble. And her question made Faith remember that Louise was a guest.

"I'll get her," she said, and in a few moments "Lady Amy" was sitting on the sofa between the two little friends, and Faith was displaying the new dresses that Aunt Prissy had helped her make for the doll.

"Father says he will buy me a doll," Louise announced, "and he's going to get me a fine string of beads, too, when he goes away again;" for the shoemaker went away frequently on mysterious business. Many of the settlers were quite sure that he carried messages for the British officers to other forts; but he came and went so stealthily that as yet no proof was held against him.

"I have some blue beads. My father is going to bring them when he comes to see me," said Faith. "I hope yours will be just like them."

Louise shook her head a little doubtfully. "I may never get them, after all. Father forgets things," she said.

Before supper time Faith was in a much happier state of mind. She had helped Louise with her reading lesson; they had played that the sofa was a throne and Lady Amy a queen, and that they were Lady Amy's daughters; and the unpleasantness of the early afternoon had quite vanished when the candles were lighted, and supper on the table.

The supper seemed a feast to the shoemaker's daughter. Every time she came to visit Faith Louise tasted some new dish, so daintily prepared that she was at once eager to learn to make it. Faith was hungry, too, and, as no reference was made to her trip to the fort, she enjoyed her supper; and not until it was finished was she reminded of her troubles.

"To-morrow Louise may go to church with us, and you may wear your blue dress that you are so careful of," Aunt Prissy said.

Faith made no response. She did not know what to do or say. She was so quiet that her aunt was sure her little niece was overtired, and soon after supper sent the little girls off to bed.

"What is the matter, Faith?" questioned Louise, when they were safely in the big chamber, with its high white bed, curtained windows, and comfortable chairs, and which to Louise seemed the finest bedroom in all the world.

Faith threw herself face down on the bed. "I don't know what to do! I don't know what to do! I've spoiled my blue dress!" she sobbed. There!

That was one secret the less, she thought. And Louise would never tell. "I can't go to church. I don't dare tell Aunt Prissy about the dress. It was to be my best dress all winter," she added. "What shall I do, Louise?"

Louise shook her head. That Faith Carew, who seemed to her to be the most fortunate girl in all the world, should be in trouble was a far more dreadful thing to Louise than any trouble of her own.

"Let me see the dress," she said; "perhaps it isn't very bad."