"It's all right, mother," she said, also climbing up to her place. "I
can make pictures with a pencil more easily than I can bear to think
that Dick needs my camera money, I'll be glad to do it, mother."

But Ethelwyn's voice was hoarse, and the next morning she was not well
enough to go to town.




_CHAPTER VII_
_The Secret_

Such fun to have a secret!
To tell one too is fun.
But then there is no secret
That's known to more than one.


Ethelwyn had intended to have a most unhappy day, so after her mother
and Beth went, she lay face down in the hammock with a very damp ball of
a handkerchief squeezed up tightly against her eyes. But by and by she
heard Aunty Stevens calling her. "Here I am," she answered, at once
sitting up.

"Do you feel well enough to help me make some apple pies?" Ethelwyn
rolled out of the hammock, and ran into the kitchen in a trice.

"O if you only knew how I love to cook, Aunty Stevens," she cried. "And