promise not to tell Prudence and Hugh."

"No," said Mollie, "I can't do that. Prudence was awfully
frightened; she got quite pale. We were frightened together and
looked for you together; it wouldn't be fair for you to tell me and
not to tell her. I hate things that are not fair."

Grizzel was silent again and then sighed. "Oh well, I suppose I'd
better tell. I'd have liked to keep one secret, but I can't bear not
to go to Hugh's party. It was very easy--I only--"

"Wait," said Mollie, "I'll call Prue."

[Illustration: I WISH I COULD MAKE SOMETHING THAT WOULD REACH FROM
HERE TO MY BROTHER]

"I saw Hugh take the ladder," Grizzel went on, after Prue joined
them; "of course I heard it scraping along; Hugh is a silly. So I
watched him hide it, and when the milkman came I called him, and he
put it up and helped me down and we hid it back again. That's all."

The others looked at each other, and then Mollie began to laugh, and
went on laughing till Prue and Grizzel laughed at her laughing.
"Well, I must say!" she exclaimed at last, "I _am_ a Sherlock Holmes
and no mistake! I was so busy being clever that I never even thought
of a milkman, which would have been Baden-Powell's first idea. Of
all the silly things! Why on earth didn't we think of it, Prue?"

Hugh, most reluctantly, went to school next morning, and Mamma kept
the girls busy with Italian, music, and needlework till lunch-time.