Page:Ballantyne--The Pirate City.djvu/317

Rh "Oh what a lovely ring!" exclaimed Agnes, as Ziffa drew it out of her breast and put it on.

"Yes, isn't it pretty? But I must not let my old servant see it, lest he should tell my father, who'd be very angry if he knew I had taken it."

Agnes was taken by surprise, and remained silent. She had been so carefully trained to tell her father and mother everything, and to trust them, that it was a new and disagreeable idea to her the thought of doing anything secretly.

"Well, this is what I want," continued Ziffa; "I want you to listen to the talk of Rais Ali and the sailor who lives with you, when they don't know you are near, and tell me all that they say about a family named Rimini—will you?"

"Oh, I can't do that," said Agnes decidedly; "it would be wrong."

"What would be wrong?" asked Mrs. Langley, coming out from a side-walk in the garden at that moment to fetch the children in to lunch.

Agnes blushed, looked down, and said nothing. Her mother at once dropped the subject, and led them into the house, where she learned from Agnes the nature of her little friend's proposal.

"Take no further notice of it, dear," said her mother, who guessed the reason of the child's curiosity.

Leaving the friends at lunch in charge of Paulina