Before long everybody began to notice how eager Joe was in his search.

“What are you going to do with all your posies?” queried Will, twittingly.

“They must be for Frances,” declared Elsie.

“Maybe he is going to give them to Aunt Anna Grey,” ventured Teresa.

“Perhaps to mother,” hazarded Ellen.

“Yes:  some for mother,” admitted Joe; “and the others for—­don’t you wish you knew!” And Joe’s eyes danced roguishly as he darted off to a patch of violets.

“He has some project.  What can it be?” soliloquized Ellen, looking after him.

Joe, unconscious of her gaze, was bending over the little blue flowers, and humming an air which the children had learned a few days before.

“That tune is so catchy I can’t get it out of my mind,” he remarked to Will.

Suddenly Ellen started up.  “I know!” she said to herself.  Then for a time she was silent, flitting to and fro with a smile upon her lips, her thoughts as busy as her fingers.  “Ha, Master Joe!  I believe we’ll all try that plan!” she exclaimed at length, laughing at the idea of the surprise in store for him.  Presently she glanced toward Teresa and Elsie, who were loitering under a tree, talking in a low tone.  Ellen laughed again.  “Those two children are always having secrets about nothing at all,” mused she.

Ellen was a lively girl, and greatly enjoyed a joke.  After a while, when she discovered Elsie alone, she whispered something to her.  The little girl’s brown eyes grew round with interest.  She nodded once or twice, murmuring, “Yes, yes!”

“And you must not breathe a word of it to anybody—­not even to Teresa!” said Ellen.

“Oh, no!” said Elsie, quite flattered that such a big girl should confide in her.

Then—­ah, merry Ellen!—­did she not go herself and tell Teresa, charging her also not to reveal it?  Later she took occasion to say a word to Frances upon the same topic.

“Splendid!” cried the latter.  “I’ll not speak of it, I promise you.”

Finally, Ellen suggested the very same thing to Will, who chuckled, looked at Joe, and asked: 

“Are you sure you’re on the right track?”

“You’ll see if I’m not!” replied Ellen.

“Well, all I say is,” he went on, condescendingly, “you’ve hit upon a capital scheme; and you may bet your boots on it that I won’t do anything to spoil it.”

The girl looked down at her strong but shapely shoes (she was a bit vain of her neat foot), and thought that she would not be so unladylike as to ‘bet her boots’ on anything.  But, as Will’s observation was entirely impersonal, and intended as a pledge that he would follow her instructions, she made no comment.  Moreover, she had now brought about the state of affairs which she had mischievously designed.  Each of the party except Joe supposed that he or she had a secret with Ellen which the others knew nothing about; to each she had whispered her conjecture regarding Joe’s purpose, and planned that they, the two of them, should please him by joining in it, without intimating their intention to him or any one.  What a general astonishment and amusement there would be when it came out that all had known what each had been enjoying as a secret!