Usually, Jill lay flat and still; now her back was bent in a peculiar way as she leaned over her book, and one foot wagged nervously, while on the visible cheek was a Spanish stamp with a woman's face looking through the black bars, very suggestively, if she had known it.
How long the minutes seemed till some one came, and what a queer little jump her heart gave when Mrs.Minot's voice said, cheerfully, "Jack is all right, and, I declare, so is Jill.

I really believe there is a telegraph still working somewhere between you two, and each knows what the other is about without words." "I didn't have any other book handy, so I thought I'd study awhile," answered Jill, feeling that she deserved no praise for her seeming industry.
She cast a sidelong glance as she spoke, and seeing that Mrs.Minot was looking for the letter, hid her face and lay so still she could hear the rustle of the paper as it was taken from the floor.

It was well she did not also see the quick look the lady gave her as she turned the letter and found a red stamp sticking to the under side, for this unlucky little witness told the story.
Mrs.Minot remembered having seen the stamp lying close to the sofa when she left the room, for she had had half a mind to take it to Jack, but did not, thinking Frank's plan had some advantages.

She also recollected that a paper flew off the table, but being in haste she had not stopped to see what it was.

Now, the stamp and the letter could hardly have come together without hands, for they lay a yard apart, and here, also, on the unwritten portion of the page, was the mark of a small green thumb.
Jill had been winding wool for a stripe in her new afghan, and the green ball lay on her sofa.