"Secrets, of course."

"Do you know, Alice?"

"A little."

"Please tell me."

"I can't, but your mother will pretty soon. It's something very nice and exciting, and you're going to be in it."

"Oh, Alice, I just can't wait! Pretty please tell me."

"Promised your mother I wouldn't tell a soul. You won't have to wait long, dear, so be a good child and don't tease. Here's a cooky for you."

Alice patted the rough brown head lovingly.

During the next week excitement lurked around every corner in the Morton home. Mrs. Morton was having a wonderful ashes-of-roses silk dress made.

Chicken Little found Alice concocting a huge fruit cake with a perfect marvel of white frosting, and this was promptly stowed away in the big tin cake box and labelled "Hands Off." Not so much as a bite was permitted to any member of the family.

Jane came into the room unnoticed one day in time to hear her mother say to Frank: "Of course, the house is from both of us, but I want to give you something all by myself, and I think I will make it a silver water set."

This was too much for Chicken Little. Why should her father be giving brother Frank a house? Wasn't he going to live with them any more? She decided to go and talk the mystery over with Katy, but her mother saw her and called her back.

"I've something very nice to tell you, little daughter, but we want to keep it a secret for a week or two yet, so you must promise Mother not to tell anybody till Mother gives you permission."

Chicken Little nodded eagerly.

"Your brother Frank is going to be married, dear, early in November, to lovely Marian Gates--they are going to live near us over on Front Street. Your father has given them that pretty cottage next to Darts'.

You have always wanted a sister--now you will have one. Won't that be nice?"

Chicken Little was too astonished to answer and her mother continued: "I am going to take you over to see Marian tomorrow afternoon and you must be a little lady so brother Frank will be proud of his little sister."

Chicken Little was so absorbed with the main idea that the hated "little lady" pa.s.sed unnoticed. When her mother had finished telling her some of the details about the wedding, which was to be a quiet one at Marian's home, she went off to school in a maze of wonderment. She had never seen a wedding. She knew vaguely that people always got new clothes for such occasions and that the minister always seemed to be present.

Her lessons suffered sadly from her excitement. She got wrong answers to four of her ten examples. When her teacher asked her for the second time where New York was situated, she answered confusedly, "Over on Front Street," and was soundly, scolded for her lack of attention.

She relieved her mind of a few questions at noon.

Was the wedding going to be at night? Could she sit up till it was all over? Was Alice going? Were Katy and Gertie going?

General conversation at the dinner table had to be largely suspended till her curiosity was satisfied.

"Well, Miss Interrogation Point," laughed her father when she had finally subsided for a moment, "any other little matters you'd like to know about?"

Chicken Little was too intent on her own ideas to notice his pleasantry.

"Why isn't Alice going?"

"Because she won't be invited, my dear," responded Mrs. Morton shortly.

"Why won't you invite her, Mother?"

"My dear, I do not do the inviting. Marian and her mother will attend to that part. Besides, my child, it is hardly customary to send wedding cards to hired girls. I may offer Alice's services to Mrs. Gates to help in the kitchen."

Chicken Little finished her apple dumpling in silence and her mother supposed she was satisfied.

She took up the question with Alice when she came home from school that afternoon.

"I wisht you were going, Alice."

"I wish I were, Chicken Little. Your mother suggested that I might go and help, but I used to play with Marian Gates when I was a little girl and I couldn't bear to go there as a servant. I would like to see your brother married--and Marian, too."

After her talk with Alice, Chicken Little started over to Halford's feeling very important but vowed to silence. Alice cautioned her as she went out the back door, "Don't tell Katy and Gertie, Chicken Little."

She rather resented this. She was resolved to die rather than tell anyone--as if she couldn't keep a secret!

But her reception was certainly disconcerting. Katy and Gertie met her at the gate, bubbling with information and determined to get all the facts they didn't know.

"Say, Jane, your brother's going to be married isn't he?" questioned Katy, and Gertie added:

"The wedding's in November isn't it? And he's going to marry Marian Gates and she's to have a white silk dress. I heard your mother tell Mamma this afternoon when I came home from school."

How could a ten year old maiden already full to bursting with a secret withstand such an attack?

Jane hesitated, got red in the face and tried to pretend not to know anything about it, but sharp little Katy had it all out of her in no time, and the deed once done Jane joyfully volunteered a few facts on her own account.

"I'm going, and I'm going to have some white shoes and a pale blue silk poplin dress with lots of little ruffles all up and down in hills--you know," and Jane danced about on her tip-toes boastfully to be recalled promptly to earth by Katy.

"Your mother didn't want you to tell, did she? Gee, I bet she'll be mad!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Chicken Little conscience-stricken, "you mustn't ever tell!"

"Well, I just guess I knew it before you told me, Jane Morton, and I guess I didn't promise anybody I wouldn't tell. 'Sides, everybody that's got eyes knows it. I've seen your brother out riding with her heaps of times."

"She's got be-utiful clothes," said Gertie, "and her sister May says her hair reaches most down to her knees and it's just as thick as----"

"Yes," interrupted Katy, "and I guess you'll have to like Jennie Gates whether you want to or not 'cause she'll be a kind of a sister, too."

"She won't either!" denied Chicken Little hotly. "Mother said just Marian, and she's lovely--so there!"

"Isn't it funny her name will be Marian Morton now instead of Marian Gates," replied Katy, satisfied with the commotion she had caused and wishing to give a new turn to the conversation.

This was a new thought to Chicken Little and she paused to ponder over it. Of course her mother's name was Morton the same as her father's, but then she supposed it had always been Morton. That night when she went home she astounded her mother by asking why Frank's name wouldn't be Frank Gates if Marian was to be Marian Morton. She also made her big brother's face flush by asking if Marian's red hair really truly came below her knees.

"Why, little Sis, I don't know. It looks as if it did."

Jane looked forward to the call on the new sister with mingled dread and delight. She drove off in state beside her mother proudly arrayed in her best red merino dress and little brown furs, and firmly resolved to put prejudice aside for once and be a little lady.

Her awe of this new sister was so great that she followed her mother into the Gates' parlor in such a condition of stage fright that she resembled a jointed doll more than an active child. She extended her small hand stiffly to the tall girl in blue who bent to greet her. But the new sister had heard too much of Chicken Little to stand on ceremony, and putting both arms around her, kissed her twice, once between the wondering eyes and once on her prim little mouth.