commenced scribbling upon it.

She wished the cook in the next garden to think that she was jotting
down a few things that she wished to remember.

Curiosity was at once aroused, and the cook moved toward the hedge.

"E'hem!" she coughed softly.

The housekeeper turned coolly.

"Oh, good morning," she said. "I just come out here for a bit of a
rest, there's so much going on just now, that I'm nearly wild with the
planning."

"Do tell!" cried the cook. "I've heard there was to be great doings
of some sort over at 'The Cliffs,' but I haven't yet heard what it is.
What's it all about? I'm wild to know."

Mrs. Wilton sighed, as if she were already very weary.

"We're not more than half ready for the great event," she said, "but
Captain Atherton does not wish me to tell anyone the least thing about
it."

"Mercy sakes! Why I came out purpose to hear!" said the cook, her
round face very red, and her little eyes snapping.

"Well, you'll hear later," Mrs. Wilton said, and turning, she walked
across the lawn and entered the house.

Inside the door she whispered:

"There! I guess that paid her for being so private that she wouldn't
tell me a thing about the company that left their house in such a
hurry one day last week, and hustled off before daylight at that!"

The cook, still standing with her fat arms akimbo, stared wrathfully
at the closed door where the housekeeper had vanished.

"Well, of all the mean things not even telling a decent woman like
myself one bit of what's going on there! I'll find out, though, some
way. To-morrow is my afternoon off, and I'll go from one end of this
town to the other to see what I can hear."

Even little Rose Atherton was pledged to keep the secret.

"We're to have a lovely time at our house," she said to Polly and
Sprite, one morning. "We're to have a perfectly lovely time, and
you'll be there to enjoy it, but that is all I can tell. Uncle John
said I could say that if I wished to but that I musn't tell any more
just now."

"Well, we won't mind waiting to hear just what it is," Polly said,
"because we know it will be nice, whatever sort of party it is. We
always have a nice time at your house."

"And we'll like it all the better because there's to be a surprise of
some sort," said Sprite.

"We can wonder and wonder, and then when the day comes we'll have the
fun of not guessing what it is, but just knowing what it is and
enjoying it."

Rose looked very wise.

"It