lked up the road a few steps.
Suddenly she faced about. Mehitable had already started homeward.

"Mehitable Lamb!" said she.

Mehitable looked around.

"I s'pose you'll go right straight home and tell my mother just as quick
as you can get there."

Mehitable said nothing.

"You'll be an awful telltale if you do."

"Sha'n't tell," said Mehitable, in a sulky voice.

"Will you promise--'Honest and true. Black and blue. Lay me down and cut
me in two'--that you won't tell?"

Mehitable nodded.

"Say it over then."

Mehitable repeated the formula. It sounded like inaudible gibberish.

"I shall tell her myself when I get home," said Hannah Maria. "I shall
be back pretty soon, anyway, but I don't want her sending father after
me. You're sure you're not goin' to tell, now, Mehitable Lamb? Say it
over again."

Mehitable said it again.

"Well, you'll be an awful telltale if you do tell after that!" said
Hannah Maria.

She went on up one road towards her uncle Timothy Dunn's, and Mehitable
trundled her doll-carriage homeward down the other. She went straight on
past Hannah Maria's house. Hannah Maria's mother, Mrs. Green, had come
home. She saw the white horse and buggy out in the south yard. She heard
Mrs. Green's voice calling, "Hannah Maria, Hannah Maria!" and she
scudded by like a rabbit.

Mehitable's own house was up the hill, not far beyond. She lived there
with her mother and grandmother and her two aunts; her father was dead.
The smoke was coming out of the kitchen chimney; her aunt Susy was
getting supper. Aunt Susy was the younger and prettier of the aunts.
Mehitable thought her perfection. She came to the kitchen door when
Mehitable entered the yard, and stood there smiling at her.

"Well," said she, "did you have a nice time at Hannah Maria's?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"What makes you look so sober?"

Mehitable said nothing.

"Did you play dolls?"

"Hannah Maria's too big."

"Stuff!" cried Aunt Susy. Then her shortcake was burning, and she had to
run in to see to it.

Mehitable took her china doll out of the carriage, set her carefully on
the step, and then lugged the carriage laboriously to a corner of the
piazza, where she always kept it. It was a very nice large carriage, and
rather awkward to be kept in the house. Then she took her doll and went
in through the kitchen to the sitting-room. Her mother and grandmother
and other aunt were in there, and they were all glad to see her, and
inquired i