he would have to endure innuendoes all day regarding "Copy cats," but
that was nothing to the anguish of being left at home.

As she stood breathless and full of mirth, she was rewarded by the
sound of a door creaking, and a stealthy footstep approaching the
stair. She crushed back into her hiding-place. She could not help
wondering even in the midst of her excitement how John could ever move
so quietly. She held her breath as the owner of the soft footfall came
into view. And then it returned in a little gasp of astonishment. For
it was not John at all, but Annie! Annie at this hour of the morning!
Could she be going fishing, too? Elizabeth could not think of any
other justifiable reason for getting up so early; Annie certainly
looked as if she were on a very important mission. She went down the
stairs hurriedly and silently, as though she were being pursued.
Elizabeth had for an instant an impulse to call softly after her; but
that wiser, older self within her arose and forbade. This ancient
Elizabeth respected a secret, and said that here was one into which
there must be no intrusion. She felt ashamed of herself, as though she
had done something dishonorable like listening at a keyhole, as Sarah
Emily had once done.

She heard the old door leading on to the side-porch creak stealthily,
then pause, and creak again. Perhaps Annie was ill, and she ought to
follow her. She softly tiptoed back to her room and peeped from her
window. Her sister was stealing down through the orchard, her light
summer dress plainly visible against its dim greenness. She stopped at
the bars that led into the pasture field, and as she did, Charles
Stuart came vaulting over the fence from the lane and strode towards
her. And surely everybody must have been touched with a magic wand,
and turned into somebody else; because it wasn't Charles Stuart at all,
but Mr. Coulson, to whom Elizabeth had bidden such an agonized farewell
only yesterday! He came straight towards Annie, holding out both his
hands, and when he reached the bars he leaned over them and kissed her!
And then, though Elizabeth was not quite eleven, she knew that she was
looking upon something sacred and beautiful, something that should not
be exposed to the eyes of another, and she turned swiftly and, running
to the bed, hid her face in the clothes beside Mary.

She knelt there, motionless, wondering, and in a few minutes she heard
the stealthy foot upon the stair