what it can be," said Faith; but before she opened Esther's
package she had taken the blue beads from the pretty box and put them
around her neck, touching them with loving fingers, and looking down
at them with delight. Then she unfastened the wrapping of the second
package.

"Here is a letter!" she exclaimed, and began reading it. As she read
her face brightened, and at last she laughed with delight. "Oh,
father! Read it! Esther says to let you and mother read it. And she
has sent me another string of beads!" And now Faith opened the other
box, a very pretty little box of shining yellow wood with "Faith" cut
on the top, and took out another string of blue beads, so nearly like
her own that it was difficult to tell them apart.

Mr. Carew read Esther's letter. She wrote that she had lost Faith's
beads, and had been afraid to tell her. "Now I am sending you another
string that my father got on purpose. I think you were fine not to say
a word to any one about how horrid I was to ask for your beads.
Please let your mother and father read this letter, so they will know
how polite you were to company."

"So it was Esther who lost the beads! Well, now what are you going to
do with two strings of beads?" said her father smilingly.

When Aunt Prissy came into the room Faith ran to show her Esther's
present and the letter, and told her of what had happened when she had
so rashly promised to give Esther anything she might ask for. "I am so
glad to have my own beads back again. And most of all I am glad not to
have the secret," she said, thinking to herself that life was much
happier when father and mother and Aunt Prissy could know everything
that she knew. Then, suddenly, Faith recalled the fort, and the
difficult climb down the cliff. "But that's not my secret. It's
something outside. Something that I ought not to tell," she thought,
with a little sense of satisfaction.

"But which string of beads did Esther send you? I can't tell them
apart," she heard Aunt Prissy say laughingly.

When the time came for Mr. Carew to start for home Faith was sure
that she wanted to go home with him. And it was only when her father
had promised to come after her early in March, "or as soon as March
stirs the fire, and gives a good warm day," he said, that Faith could
be reconciled and persuaded to let him go without her. She was glad
indeed that it was a Tuesday, and that Louise would come to stay all
night. Faith was eager to tell Louis