r startled.

"Lucia is not very well," Mrs. Horton continued, "and she has been
saying that she must, _must_ see Rebecca Flora; so it is most fortunate
that you have arrived. Some great secret, I suppose," and Mrs. Horton
smiled pleasantly, little imagining how important the girls' secret was.
Her two elder sons, boys of fifteen and seventeen, were on the _Polly_
with their father, and she and Lucia were often alone.

Rebecca had but stepped into the house when she heard her name called
from the stairway. "Oh, Rebecca, come right up-stairs," called Lucia,
and Mrs. Horton nodded her approval. "Yes, run along. 'Twill do Lucia
good to see you. I cannot imagine what ails her to-day. I saw one of the
O'Brien boys passing just now, and he tells me their liberty tree has
been found and brought to shore!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Rebecca in so surprised a tone that Mrs. Horton laughed.
"'Twould have been full as well if the tree had been allowed to drift
out to sea," she added in a lower tone.

Rebecca went up-stairs so slowly that Lucia called twice before her
friend entered the chamber where Lucia, bolstered up in bed, and with
flushed cheeks and looking very much as Rebby herself had looked an hour
earlier, was waiting for her.

"Shut the door tightly," whispered Lucia, and Rebecca carefully obeyed,
and then tiptoed toward the bed.

For a moment the two girls looked at each other, and then Lucia
whispered: "What will become of us, Rebecca? Mr. O'Brien told Mother
that the men were determined to find out who pushed the liberty tree
afloat, and that no mercy would be shown the guilty. That's just what
he said, Rebby, for I heard him," and Lucia began to cry.

"But the tree is found and brought back," said Rebecca, "and how can
anyone ever find out that we did it? No one will know unless we tell;
and you wouldn't tell, would you, Lucia?"

Lucia listened eagerly, and gradually Rebecca grew more courageous, and
declared that she was not at all afraid; that is, if Lucia would
solemnly promise never to tell of their creeping down to the shore and
cutting the rope that held the tree to the stake.

"Of course I never would tell," said Lucia, who was now out of bed and
dressing as rapidly as possible. "I wasn't ill; but I stayed up-stairs
because I was afraid you might tell," she confessed; and then Rebecca
owned that she had felt much the same. "But I had to take a big bowlful
of bitter thoroughwort tea," she added, making a little