The secret of the Mansion

tell me anything!"
    Trixie sighed. "All right, but you’ve got to promise to keep this secret"
    "I always keep see-cruds," Bobby boasted.
    "Oh, no, you don’t" Trixie corrected him. "Remember when I showed you the present I got for Mummy last Christmas? You promised not to let her guess what it was, so I could surprise her, and then later, when she was hearing you say your prayers, you said, ‘And please, God, please don’t let me tell Mummy that Trixie bought her bedroom slippers for Christmas.’ "
    "That was different," Bobby said, squirming with embarrassment. "I was just a little boy then. I’m all growed up now."
    "Well, then," Trixie went on reluctantly, "I’ll tell you what we discovered. The old summerhouse. It’s all covered over with vines and branches. When you’re well, I’ll take you up there and show it to you if you like."
    Bobby flung himself back on the pillows, sulking with disappointment. "What’s so ’citing about an old summerhouse?" he demanded petulantly. "Go on, read!"
    After Trixie had been reading for what seemed like hours, Bobby dropped off to sleep. During this short nap, Trixie fed and watered the chickens and gathered the eggs. She was putting them away when her parents returned.
    "Sh-h," she cautioned them. "The Little King is asleep. I’m practically hoarse from reading to him, but he was as good as gold."
    Mrs. Belden smiled. "He’s always good with you, Trixie. That is, when you don’t lose your patience, as you sometimes do."
    Mr. Belden patted Trixie’s shoulder approvingly. "Keep on the way you’re going, Trixie," he said, "and you’ll surely have a horse next year. We ran into Jed Tomlin at the Happen Inn where we stopped for tea. He said he’s got a nice young colt he wants to sell next spring after he’s broken and schooled it. How would you like that?"
    "Oh, Dad!" Trixie almost dropped the egg she was holding. "Will he want an awful lot of money for his horse? Do you think I can possibly earn enough by next summer?"
    "I wouldn’t be at all surprised," her father said, his eyes twinkling. "I’m delighted our new neighbors are being so generous with their horses and giving you a chance to learn to ride. Brian and Mart, of course, learned at camp. So I imagine that even if you didn’t earn enough to buy the Tomlin colt yourself, you could interest your brothers in sharing in the purchase."
    Trixie was so excited at the prospect of a horse on Crabapple Farm she could hardly eat her dinner, and it was a long time after she had gone to bed before she fell asleep. "I’ll earn the money for the colt myself," she kept saying over and over. "He’ll be as strong and fast as Jupiter, and although I’ll let Brian and Mart ride him sometimes, he won’t really like anyone but me."
     

Understanding Regan • 13
     
    THE NEXT MORNING, Honey came down to the hollow right after breakfast. She was so excited that she burst into the kitchen without knocking.
    "Oh, I’m sorry," she cried, her cheeks aflame with embarrassment when she realized what she had done.
    "Sorry for what?" demanded Trixie, who was alone in the kitchen.
    "For forgetting to knock," Honey explained. ‘I don’t know what’s come over me lately, Trixie." She giggled. "I seem to have forgotten all the good manners Miss Lefferts taught me."
    "Pooh," Trixie said impatiently. "I don’t know who Miss Lefferts is—or was—but I think you would have been awfully silly to knock when you could see me right through the screen door. People in the country don’t bother much about knocking, anyway. We usually open the door, poke our heads inside, and yell, ‘Yoo-hoo.’ "
    Honey’s giggle changed into loud laughter.
    "What’s so funny?" Trixie brought the breakfast cups to the sink and frowned at Honey.
    "Oh, oh," Honey chortled. "If anybody did that in New York City—why—oh," she interrupted herself, still shaking with laughter, "you couldn’t, anyway. Not in the apartment house we lived in. Even if you managed to sneak by the doorman and the elevator boy, you couldn’t open a door and poke your head inside. People in New York always keep their doors locked. At least people who lived in our building did."
    "Sounds like prison," Trixie said, still frowning.
    "It was, sort of," Honey admitted. "I mean, I used to ride up and down in the elevator day after day with the same people and they never spoke to me, even though we were neighbors, living on the same floor. Sometimes they would smile, but as