ut your little stamp case.'

Granny's face brightened up. It did not take very quick wits to put two
and two together, and to guess from what I said that the secret had to
do with her birthday. And Sharley was too anxious for grandmamma not to
be vexed, to think about her having partly guessed the secret.

'Ah, well!' said granny, 'I think I can trust you both.'

'Yes, indeed, you may,' said Sharley. 'There's nothing about mischief
in it, and the only secrets mother's ever been vexed with me about had
to do with mischief.'

'Sharley dressed up a pillow to tumble on Pert's head from the top of
his door, once,' said Nan in her slow solemn voice, 'and he screamed and
screamed.'

'It was because he was such a boasty boy, about never being frightened,'
said Sharley, getting rather red. 'But I never did it again. And this
secret is quite, quite a different kind.'

I felt very eager for the next French day, as we called them, to come,
to hear what Sharley had thought of. I told Kezia about it, and then I
almost wished I had not, for she said she did not know that grandmamma
would be pleased at my talking about her birthday and 'such like' to
strangers.

I think Kezia forgot sometimes how very little a girl I still was. I did
not understand what she meant, and all I could say was that the three
girls were not strangers to me. Afterwards I saw what Kezia was thinking
of, she was afraid of the Nestors sending some present to grandmamma,
and that, she would not have liked.

But Mrs. Nestor was too good and sensible for anything of that kind.

When Sharley and Nan and Vallie came the next time, I ran to meet them,
full of anxiety to know if they had made any 'plans.' They all looked
very important, but rather to my disappointment the first thing Sharley
said to me was--

'Don't ask us yet, Helena. We've promised mother not to tell. She's
going to come to fetch us to-day, and she's made a lovely plan, but
first she has to speak about it to your grandmamma.'

'Then it won't be a surprise,' I began, but Vallie answered before I had
time to say any more.

'Oh yes, it will. There's to be a surprise mixed up with it, and we're
to settle that part of it all ourselves--you and us.'

I found it very difficult to keep to speaking French that day, I can
tell you. And it seemed as if the hour and a half of lessons spread out
to twice as much before Mrs. Nestor at last came.

We all ran out into the garden while she went in to