The secret of the Mansion

thank you, dear. You had a dreadful experience yesterday. Run along and have some tan and try to forget all about it."
    "All right," Trixie said. ‘Til be out on the driveway if you need me, and please give Bobby my love." Honey had her first bicycle lesson that morning, and after a few tumbles she got on very well.
    "You’re really doing swell," Trixie said, watching her pupil admiringly. "I guess all the horseback riding you’ve done has given you a marvelous sense of balance."
    Honey flushed with pleasure. "Do you think I’m good enough to coast down that little slope from the garage?" she asked.
    "Sure." Trixie grinned. "At the rate you’re going, you’ll be coasting down your own driveway in no time flat."
    Honey started at the entrance to the garage and swept past Trixie, with her light-brown hair flying behind her. "Whee," she yelled excitedly, "I never had so much fun!"
    At that moment, the big laundry truck lumbered into the Belden driveway, and almost simultaneously Honey lost control of the bicycle. It began to weave from side to side, right in the path of the truck, as Trixie shouted, "Steer to the right, Honey. Steer to the right!"
    Honey jerked the handlebars violently to one side and crashed to the ground, helplessly tangled between the two wheels. The truck driver slammed on his brakes just in time and stopped in a swirl of gravel not two feet from where Honey lay.
    "Say, what goes on here?" he demanded crossly as Trixie tried to extricate Honey. "Why’n’t you look where you’re going?"
    Trixie ignored him as he strode past them with the bundle, muttering angrily to himself. She helped Honey to her feet. Then she saw the ugly gash on Honey’s knee.
    "Oh, that must hurt," she cried sympathetically. "We’d better go in the house and bathe it and put on some iodine."
    Honey giggled. "My brand-new dungarees, tom to shreds." She stopped suddenly and turned deathly pale. "Oh, oh," she moaned. "It’s bleeding. I’m going to faint. I can’t stand the sight of blood."
    Trixie remembered, then, how white Honey’s face had been the day before when she saw her sucking blood from Bobby’s toe. With one quick movement, she sat Honey down on the lawn and pushed her head between her knees.
    "You’re all right, Honey," she said quietly. "You’re not going to faint. Just keep your head down. I’ll be right back." And she raced to the brook to soak her handkerchief. Trixie squeezed water on Honey’s wrists and bathed her forehead, and in a little while the color began to come back in Honey’s face and lips.
    "I feel better now," she said with a shaky little laugh. "I’m sorry to be such a sissy, Trixie."
    "You’re not a sissy," Trixie said staunchly. "You had an awful scare and that’s a nasty cut. If you feel strong enough now, Honey, we’d better go in and give it a little first aid."
    Honey set her teeth while Trixie bathed the gravel out of the wound and painted it with iodine, but she didn’t utter a sound. Mrs. Belden came into the bathroom then and inspected Honey’s knee. "That’s an ugly gash," she said. "You’d better stay off the bike until it heals, Honey."
    "Oh, Mrs. Belden," Honey wailed. "I can’t. I’m just beginning to get the idea, and I’ll have to start all over again if I wait."
    Mrs. Belden smiled and reached up to a box on one of the top shelves. "Well," she said, "keep it bandaged and wear these kneepads awhile. You’re a brave girl," she added as she left the room, "to risk bumping that knee again so soon."
    Honey stared at Trixie. "Do you suppose she really meant that?" she gasped. "About my being brave? Or was she just trying to make me feel better?" Trixie hooted. "Of course she meant it, silly. Moms never says anything she doesn’t mean."
    "Gosh," Honey breathed. "Golly! Golly! Golly!"
     

An Exploring Trip • 8
     
    TRIXIE WAS JUST finishing her soup and sandwich when the phone rang. It was Honey, breathless with excitement.
    "Oh, Trixie, what do you think just arrived by express?"
    "A big black snake with a white streak down its back," Trixie teased, and then she could have bitten off her tongue as she realized from the silence on the other end of the wire that she had hint Honey’s feelings. She was relieved after a couple of seconds to hear a giggle.
    "No, a bike," Honey said. "Miss Trask ordered it yesterday when she was in White Plains. It’s a beauty, too, with a big basket and a speedometer and a siren and a light. I’m going to practice all