g happened to Tony and me as we came by the side
wall of our garden after we had taken the quiet Willises home and he
was bringing me to my front gate. It makes me nervous to think about
it. That secret about the steel, which is going to keep Roxanne from
living in such poverty, weighs on my mind so that I never forget it.
It is right out there in the little shed and it is both dangerous and
precious.

Suddenly Tony stopped me right opposite the shed and gave the Scout
signal of warning.

"Tip-hist-toe," he said under his breath. "Did you see a shadow dodge
behind Roxy's cottage just a minute ago, Phyllis?" he asked, in a
whisper that was enough to make almost any girl's blood run cold in
her body.

"I did," I answered him in just as blood-curdling a whisper, "but
Uncle Pompey goes out to see after his hens just about this time every
night. I think that was the shadow."

"Of course," Tony laughed in a human voice again. "Say Phyllis, you
are one brick, a yard wide, all wool, and a foot thick. There are not
the usual bubble squeals in you." I never was so confused in all my
life. I don't know how to answer people when they express a liking for
me, because I have never had many compliments passed on me.

"Thank you, Tony," I said, just as humbly as I felt, which was very
humble indeed.

"Now, Phyllis, I wasn't patting any Fido on the head," Tony laughed in
a funny way; for what I said had teased him, though I don't know just
why. "And also I didn't say that to you because you didn't yelp when I
scared up a bogie for you, but because I saw how you came near beating
me to Roxy's catastrophes this morning when Belle wanted to give her
the jolly go-by. Old Roxanny has some rough going at times, and it is
good to know that she has got a bubble next door to stand by her in a
stocking-darning way a fellow can't. Good-night!"

Tony Luttrell is an honorable gentleman, if he is just in short
trousers yet, and I appreciate his friendship.

That shadow _will_ make me uneasy. I feel like that cross, nervous
white hen of Uncle Pompey's, only as if I were sitting on dynamite
bottles instead of eggs. I will and do trust my father, but can I
trust him to trust Rogers? Oh, I wish he was just a lawyer with almost
no practice, like Tony's father, and was sitting in the office all day
long doing nothing, where I knew he was, instead of going back and
forth from the city with other men that have more money than it is
right to have!