so I won't tell on you," said Tom, with a
re-assuring nod.

"There 's nothing to tell."

"Ain't there, though? What do you suppose the governor will say to you
girls going on so with those dandies? I saw you."

"What has the Governor of Massachusetts to do with us?" asked Polly,
trying to look as if she meant what she said.

"Pooh! you know who I mean; so you need n't try to catch me up, as
grandma does."

"Tom, I 'll make a bargain with you," cried Fanny, eagerly. "It was
n't my fault that Gus and Frank were there, and I could n't help their
speaking to me. I do as well as I can, and papa need n't be angry; for I
behave ever so much better than some of the girls. Don't I, Polly?"

"Bargain?" observed Tom, with an eye to business.

"If you won't go and make a fuss, telling what you 'd no right to hear
it was so mean to hide and listen; I should think you 'd be ashamed
of it! I 'll help you tease for your velocipede, and won't say a word
against it, when mamma and granny beg papa not to let you have it."

"Will you?" and Tom paused to consider the offer in all its bearings.

"Yes, and Polly will help; won't you?"

"I 'd rather not have anything to do with it; but I 'll be quiet, and
not do any harm."

"Why won't you?" asked Tom, curiously.

"Because it seems like deceiving."

"Well, papa need n't be so fussy," said Fan, petulantly.

"After hearing about that Carrie, and the rest, I don't wonder he is
fussy. Why don't you tell right out, and not do it any more, if he don't
want you to?" said Polly, persuasively.

"Do you go and tell your father and mother everything right out?"

"Yes, I do; and it saves ever so much trouble."

"Ain't you afraid of them?"

"Of course I 'm not. It 's hard to tell sometimes; but it 's so
comfortable when it 's over."

"Let 's!" was Tom's brief advice.

"Mercy me! what a fuss about nothing!" said Fanny, ready to cry with
vexation.

"T is n't nothing. You know you are forbidden to go gallivanting round
with those chaps, and that 's the reason you 're in a pucker now. I
won't make any bargain, and I will tell," returned Tom, seized with a
sudden fit of moral firmness.

"Will you if I promise never, never to do so any more?" asked Fanny,
meekly; for when Thomas took matters into his own hands, his sister
usually submitted in spite of herself.

"I 'll think about it; and if you behave, maybe I won't do it at all. I
can watch you better than papa can; so, if you try i