"Tell me," he said. "It's such good fun to have a secret. I know two of the cook's and one of that new chambermaid's." "Then you know enough." "No, I don't, either. I never tell on one if I promise, you know; but I scare 'em half to death sayin' I will tell if they don't do so and so, you know. There's the cook, now. She's got so she makes my kind of choc'late cake 'bout every day 'cause she thinks if she don't I'll tell marmer something she did one time when you were all gone." Here the boy laughed, and danced a short shuffle on the close-cut grass. "You're a low-bred little cad, then," said Carolyn, so sharply that she rather wondered at herself. Leander stopped dancing. His face grew very red. "You dasn't say that again!" he shouted. "I guess you wouldn't say such rotten, nasty things if Rodney was here. You're as sweet as California honey when he's round. And I ain't a cad. 'N' if I am, who's a better right? 'N' you're a cad's sister, then,--that's what you are!" "Welcome diversion!" cried Prudence. "We were getting very tired of telling secrets. Where's that tame crow? I haven't seen him yet." But the boy could not answer. His face seemed swelling, his sharp eyes were filling. "Leander, I beg your pardon," hastily said his sister. "I ain't a cad!" said the boy, in a shrill quaver. "Rodney told me I was real gentlemanly 'bout that reward." Then, with a sudden fury, "I hate you, Carolyn Ffolliott, 'n' you needn't beg my pardon." Leander spun around, and hurried away. As he did so, a black speck appeared over the savin-trees. CHAPTER IV. "I REALLY OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN AN ACTRESS." Carolyn called imperatively to her brother to come back. Immediately after her call, Mrs. Ffolliott appeared on the piazza. "Caro," she said, remonstrantly, "what have you been saying to Leander?" "I've been calling him a little cad." "My dear! How could you? Now he'll be somewhere kicking and screaming, and probably doing himself an injury. How could you be so thoughtless?" The girl made no reply; but Prudence ventured to suggest that if Leander was screaming at the present moment, he would be heard plainly in the part of the world where his mother and sister were standing. Mrs. Ffolliott twisted her hands together. "Leander is so sensitive," she said, pathetically. By this time, Carolyn had started forward to find her brother. But she paused, at her cousin's exclamation: "Why, here's Devil now. And why has he a cord tied to his leg?" The black speck that had sailed up over the savins gently descended and alighted in front of Prudence. It was a glossy black crow, that now immediately pulled up one foot, cocked its head on one side, and gazed knowingly at the girl, as she extended a finger towards it. It looked at the finger, and drew back a little, as if it had said, "No, you don't!"