nonsensical!"

"But what _has_ she told you, Nancy?" asks Barbara, who, enervated by
the first hot day, is languishing in the rocking-chair, slowly
seesawing. "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.