As the evening sets in and stars begin to twinkle, you find yourself in the comforting embrace of your family’s living room, a space that breathes warmth and familiarity. Your sister Mia sits beside you, the soft glow of the lamp casting gentle shadows across her face. You can tell she’s holding back something that makes her smile slightly mischievous.
“Mia, what are you up to?” you query, sensing her excitement.
“I have a secret surprise for you, but you have to promise me one thing,” she replies, her eyes sparkling.
“What?” you ask, your curiosity piqued.
“You have to swear, swear you won’t tell anyone what it is until the right time,” she insists, a note of seriousness in her tone that piques your interest even more.
Now it’s your turn to be playful. “You know I can’t keep secrets!” you chuckle, remembering the countless times your eyes betrayed you to eager ears eager to learn the mysteries of sibling life.
“Oh please, Ben…” she nudges your arm, “this is important. Cross your heart and hope to die.”
“Okay, I cross my heart and hope to die,” you reply, mimicking her tone, as truly you have never done either of those things, and with a grin, you add, “but you won’t find a grave to bury me in!”
“Oh stop being funny,” she laughs, shaking you off, “You’ll spoil everything!”
Then turns serious again. “So promise!”
“I promise,” you assure and since she cannot touch the place the windows and doors of the room standing open, lest a draught come in, you begin searching her face, her dress, her very eyes for the surprise. Confess for half a moment your heart revises cards, all face up, lest it look down again; but only for half a moment, for the fun of finding out, and just a little thrill in your very skin lets you know it is something remarkably thrilling.
“I’ll be as quick as I can,” she says at last, “so just wait a moment,” and slipping out of the door, you hear her swiftly go upstairs.
“What a very secret secret!” comes a voice from the door all of a sudden, where the maid Emily, in a kind of frilliness to match the evening, is standing, “it’s just a bit laid over for you.”
You laugh away her intrusion at the door, but it’s a pretty impertinent one, to meet you no end right off the reel, and however, already twice from.
“That’s a joke, anyhow,” she coast out, and in a moment you hear Mia lock herself up again, but dodges comically upstairs.
“How long she is,” you think; but could any one have told you what had been the matter upstairs, it might have changed the expression of your unmoved countenance, and you would have thought curiously of two men you have often seen standing up in a kind of haricots in front of the other ways-off streets in London and holding tight on messages; you’d wondered why each had to have two to manage, and you’re almost panting over it now.
Of course, your sister must return with her innumerable din on the second floor, or never be quiet; and that was just her desire.
“She’ll be a bit upset just at first,” says Emily passing, forcing your attention away from the donkeys to herself.
“If she isn’t before,” you think, “Emily will be a good touchstone.”
“Now, mind, if you like to hear it, I think it’s like nothing more than Shea’s very own bells,” she says, “I wonder if she hasn’t had the burst-up a woman with her, coffined. It’s meat and drink, a live thing to a woman; she must have the flush of it,” mutters she.
You know the best way to give any human being the mind to do a thing is, desire it earnestly for them yourself.
But soon, a little rapid patter overhead, telltale your surmises, and the door is bolted with a sound most alarming.
At last comes an answer at the door.
“Now, what do you want?” comes in your sister’s voice from within.
“I want nothing,” you archly reply.
“But I want my surprise,” whines a very little voice between the floor and the ceiling, and it bursts into the loudest willing cry!