you doing with them?" asked Hugh, laughing.

"Oh, Hugh, please don't tell! but Tom and the B. B.'s are making an
underground shanty, and they sent me for all the shovels, and I got
all I could find, and now I can't carry them," said Gem dolefully.

"An underground shanty! What in the world are you going to do with it,
and who are the B. B.'s?" asked Hugh, relieving his little cousin from
her load, and carrying it down the stairs for her.

"Live in it, like Robinson Crusoe, you know, and roast potatoes and
everything."

"It will be rather hot, won't it, Pussy?"

"Oh, no!" said Gem decisively; "Tom says it will be delightfully cool.
We're going to have a stove, and chairs, and a table, and candles, and
things to eat; and then the dogs can stay there too. Grip has never
had a regular house, you know, and Tom says it isn't respectable for
him to be loose round the garden at night any more, and so he's going
to let him live in the shanty."

"Happy Grip!" said Hugh, as he delivered the shovels at the foot of
the stairs; "but who are the B. B.'s, Gem?"

"Oh! the Band of Brothers,--a secret society. Don't let them see you,
please, Hugh, for I promised not to tell, and I'm almost afraid of
them, they've got such a dreadful motto."

"What is it, Pussy?"