yes.")After that the Imp went right on to chatter in French. But by this time
we'd made up our minds that it was high time _we_ were let in to that
little secret, so we hurried to catch up with them. But the Imp saw us
too quickly. She shut the book, slipped it back in her school-bag, and
by the time we had joined them they were conversing sedately in English
about the weather.When we reached our own gate the Imp went off about her own devices,
with never a word about the queer performance on the street. But Carol
and I made up our mind that we'd take a peep at that book in her
school-bag when she wasn't around. So when she had gone upstairs for a
while, we opened the school-bag that she had flung down on the couch in
the living-room.But when did we ever manage to get ahead of the Imp? She had carefully
removed that book, and it was nowhere to be found. I remember noticing
that it was a thick book with a light green cover, and there was nothing
even faintly resembling it anywhere about, so far as we could discover.
What she could have done with it, or when she could have taken it out
without our notice, beats me. Leave it to the Imp, however, to
accomplish that sort of trick.Of course we plainly saw that there was nothing we could do, except to
question her, and we debated the longest time about whether to do so or
not. It's such a hopeless performance, if the Imp has made up her mind
beforehand that you're not going to find out anything from her. Carol
suggested that we ask her right out what she had discovered that
Monsieur was so interested in. I told her there was only one kind of
answer to expect to _that_, so what on earth was the use?I thought I had a better scheme. The Imp has been wild for a long time
to have a fountain-pen like the one I bought in Bridgeton two months ago
for a dollar. I was going to save up and give her one for her birthday.
But that's a long way off yet. So I suggested to Carol that I offer to
let the Imp have mine, and then buy a new one with the dollar Uncle Ben
gave me at Christmas. She said it was an awful waste of a good pen, and
might not accomplish what we wanted, anyway, but that I could try it if
I liked.So a little later, when the Imp came in where we were studying, I began
on the subject, but very carefully, so that she wouldn't suspect
something right at the start and spoil everything. After she had settled
herself to read--it was _my_ book, by the way!--I began thus:"You and Monsieur seemed to be having a nice time while you were coming
up the road this afternoon. Does he think you talk good French?"The Imp glanced at me warily, but replied in an amiable manner:"Oh, yes. He says I'm the only person he's met in America, except Louis
and his folks, who speaks it with a decent accent."Then she went on reading. 

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