"

"If it isn't I won't tell. Can't you leave it so?"

"But what a plague! Here I have gone and done all this just for you, and
now you must go and make a fuss. What  would it do you to promise?
it's nobody's business but yours and mine, and somebody else's that
won't make any talk about it, I promise you."

"I won't speak of it, certainly, Nancy, unless I think I ought; can't
you trust me?"

"I wouldn't give two straws for anybody else's say so," said Nancy; "but
as you're as stiff as the mischief, I s'pose I'll have to let it go.
I'll trust you! Now listen. It don't look like anything, does it?"

"Why, no," said Ellen, laughing; "you hold your apron so loose that I
cannot see anything."

"Well, now listen. You know I've been helping down at your aunt's--did
you?"

"No."

"Well, I have, these six weeks. You never see