Orilla was now moving about the room in such an excited manner that Nancy became alarmed!

“Come on out, Orilla,” she begged. “I really have stayed too long. Rosa will be back—”

“All right. Let’s go. But I want to tell you that I broke the fern stand—Mrs. Betty’s, you know,” Orilla said, her voice raising beyond the pitch of security. “I came back that night—mother was to be away a week and I came up here for that one night—and I had forgotten my key. I was so mad to have to go back home all alone and it was late, you know, that I just Smashed that fancy stand for revenge!”

“Orilla! That lovely fernery!” gasped Nancy.

258 “Yes, I know it does seem cowardly,” admitted the girl, “but my head was splitting—”

“You have a headache now,” interrupted Nancy, noting again the girl’s highly flushed face.

“Yes, and I must go,” she cast a lingering look about the room, which really was quite cozy. “How I would love to be able to come in here and fix things up,” she sighed.

Nancy was thinking of a possible plan, but she had no time to mention it now. She wanted to get outside and find Rosa.

“Of course I’m going to tell Rosa,” she said, making sure of speaking positively so that Orilla would not expect to object.

“I suppose you can. I am so tired of secrets that I was determined to tell you before my old crankiness would come over me again,” confessed Orilla. She had locked the door and again they were treading their way under the wild grape-vine tunnel. “I don’t know why it is that some people can soothe one so. I should never have thought of confiding in anyone259 else, and yet you’re just a little girl,” reasoned Orilla wonderingly.

“Maybe that’s it,” replied Nancy brightly. “Because I’m little—”

“Oh, no. That isn’t all of it, but you wouldn’t care for soft soap,” said Orilla wistfully.

“I’m sure I hear Rosa—”

“But I must go, Nancy. My head is bursting, and if I get talking to Rosa, she’ll say so much—”

“You know she has been looking for you all day,” persisted Nancy, anxiously.

“I can’t help it. Everything has got to wait—until to-morrow. Tell her I’ll be here in the morning—if I’m able—”

“Orilla, I can’t let you go,” interposed Nancy. “I’m afraid you’re sick—”

“No, I’m not, really. I have these headaches often, and bringing you into my room, you see—”

“Yes, I understand,” said Nancy kindly. “And if you feel that perhaps, as you say, you had better get quiet. All right; I’ll tell Rosa.260 Don’t worry that she’ll find fault; she always speaks well of you, Orilla.”

“Yes, little Rosa’s all right, but silly. She was so ashamed of being fat—why—” and a little laugh escaped Orilla’s lips. “Wasn’t she foolish?”

Nancy heard voices from the roadway just as Orilla slipped into her boat and paddled off. Finding the secret room had been such a sudden revelation that Nancy could scarcely understand it all even yet. That Orilla should have so loved that room, and that she had been coming to it secretly for so long a time, seemed incredible.

“Uncle Frederic would have let her have it, I’m sure,” Nancy reasoned, “and I’m going to ask him to,” she determined, when the unmistakable voice of Rosa floated in through the hedge.

It was going to be exciting, Nancy knew, this news to Rosa. It would surely be met with one of Rosa’s typical outbursts, so she decided to postpone the telling until Rosa was safely, if not quietly, indoors.

261 “Drydens want us to come to their hotel some night,” Rosa reported, “and we must go. Nancy, they think I’m thin enough. What do you think of that?” and Rosa took a look in the mirror to help Nancy’s answer.

“Calm yourself, Rosa,” said Nancy importantly. “I’ve got such news—”

“Orilla been here?”

“Yes—”

“And she’s gone? Why didn’t you chain her till I came—”

“I couldn’t, Rosa, she had a dreadful headache—”

“Headache! What’s that to the trouble I’ve got? Her troubles, I mean,” and Rosa fell into a chair as if in despair.

“Do let me tell you, Rosa. I feel a little done up myself.”

“Selfish me, as usual. Go ahead, Coz. I’ve got my fingers crossed and am gripping both arms of the chair. No, that’s a physical impossibility; but I’ve got my feet crossed, so it’s all the same. Now please—tell!”

“Did you have any idea that Orilla came to262 her room here, in this house?” Nancy began in her direct way.

“Her room? In this house? What do you mean? She hasn’t any room here!”

“I mean the room she had before Betty came—”

“That little first floor corner—”

“Yes, behind the storeroom, down by the west wing—”

“I knew there was a corner of the house there, but it’s been shut up for ages,” replied Rosa, already showing her eagerness to hear all of the story.

“Well, poor Orilla could never give up that room, and she has been coming to it every chance she got. She took me in there to-night and I never saw anything so pathetic,” explained Nancy simply. “She fairly loves the room and insists that it should still be hers.”

“Can you—beat—that!” Rosa was so surprised no other wording seemed strong enough for her. “Coming to that little cubby-hole!263 Say, Nancy, honestly, do you think that Orilla’s crazy?”

“No, I don’t. But I’ve heard mother tell of such cases. And I’ve read about girls keeping their baby loves, old dolls, you know, and things like that. But this is the oddest—”

“For mercy sakes! How ever did she manage it?” Rosa asked, blinking hard to see through the surprising tale.

Then Nancy told her, as well as she could, how Orilla came by the elderberry path, from the lake, through the maze of wild grape vines to the small door of the small porch at the west end of the big rambling house.

“I always said,” put in Rosa, “that there was a door for each servant around this house, but I must have missed that one. Well, poor old Orilla! I guess she’s quite a wreck, isn’t she?”

“She had a headache, as I told you, but she seemed glad to get rid of some of her secrets, and I don’t wonder,” admitted Nancy. “She has enough secrets to make a book. But I told her I wasn’t going to keep any more of264 th............