A month had gone by. August was already drifting into September. School loomed ahead but we hardly gave it a thought. Each day as it came along was too absorbing, for Eve and I agreed that the business of making an old house come to life again was about the most thrilling experience in the world.

Yes, Aunt Cal had really moved into Craven House. After much deliberation and lengthy conferences with her lawyer, she had at last yielded to the combined persuasion of Miss Blossom, Mrs. Viner, Eve and myself and decided to give up the little cottage in Fishers Haven and make the old place she had loved as a child her permanent home. So the first of August had seen us established. Painters, plumbers and paper hangers had overrun the place. Miss Blossom had closed her own house in the village for the time being in order to help get things going. And from the day when she and Aunt Cal had gone to work with broom and scrub brush, all the latter’s doubts and misgivings seemed magically to disappear. It was as if, with the vanquishing of dust and cobwebs, something equally oppressive had vanished from Aunt Cal’s mind. Her figure seemed actually to grow more erect and her eyes to grow brighter.

Today we were waiting for Michael to come. He’d formed the habit of stopping on his way down from the farm. Sometimes it was his advice Aunt Cal wanted about grading the lawn or the laying out of paths or flowerbeds. Sometimes he was needed to bolster up the flagging energies of our man of all work. For Gopher, though freed of the charge hanging over him through the intervention of Mr. Templeton and Captain Trout, did not take kindly to the job with which Aunt Cal had provided him. “Tillin’ the soil” he stated was out of his line as, I strongly suspected, was labor of any sort. But with Aunt Cal’s sharp eyes never long withdrawn and the knowledge that but for her he would now be sojourning in a far less pleasant place, he kept grimly at it. I used to feel sorry for him sometimes as I saw him stop to wipe his seamed, weatherbeaten face and gaze sadly down the road. And some fine morning, I felt sure, when the wind blew from the sea, Aunt Cal would come out to give directions for the day’s work and he just wouldn’t be there.

“Well, here’s your letter at last!” Eve came up the newly graveled path. She’d been to town with Miss Rose to do some errands and get the mail. My heart gave the little leap that it always does at the sight of the thin paper envelope, bearing the Chinese stamp. Aunt Cal came out to listen as I read it aloud:

“My dear daughter:

Your account of your adventures at Craven House gave us quite as much of a thrill as they must have given you. I am immensely pleased that Calliope has decided to move into the old place. I remember it well. Your mother and I stopped there with you when you were three years old, and your curious recollection of the cupboard by the fireplace undoubtedly dates from that visit.

Your mother had come down for a last visit with your grandmother Poole before we sailed for the East. It was just after your Aunt Cal had married and gone West to live. We stopped for a call on Captain Judd Craven, a fine old man of the best seafaring traditions. We were grieved to get the news of his death the following year.

I recall the big front parlor and the jar of some sort of incense on the cabinet. Very likely you got a good whiff of it, one that your sensitive nerves of smell have never forgotten. The associative power of odors is well known, and so the cupboard and particularly the china duck which you say it contained became associated in your mind with the strange new smell. Thus when you smelled it again, even after the lapse of thirteen years, the particular brain cells into which the memory had been packed away released the recollection. I have heard of many similar instances, but few which have led to so dramatic a development as in your case.”

“Well, well, that does beat all!” exclaimed Aunt Cal. “And to think of your being only three at the time!”

“I think it’s perfectly weird!” said Eve.

“Not weird at all,” I said. “Just perfectly normal and scientific as Dad explains. And I must say I’m glad to have it established that I’m not subject to trances or—what was it—cataleptic fits as Hamish so darkly hinted!”

“There’s Michael, and in a clean shirt too, if my eyes do not deceive me! Let’s go tell him about it, he’ll be frightfully interested.”

Hurriedly skimming through the rest of my letter—leaving the real reading of it till bedtime—I followed Eve across the yard. Aunt Cal went inside again to superintend the cutting of the cake, leaving the big front door wide open as it stood most of the time nowadays. This was against all the conventions of Old Beecham, but Aunt Cal was too busy just now to give much thought to the conventions.

Today we had been working from early dawn, getting ready for our first social event. It was to be—somewhat to Aunt Cal’s dismay—a garden party.

We found Michael standing in the middle of the garden, surveying the arrangements. “Well,” inquired Eve, “is your Majesty pleased?”

He grinned at her. “Say,” he said, “am I going to be the only man at this party?”

“No, don’t worry. Captain Trout’s coming and perhaps Mr. Templeton and Hattie May wrote that she and Hamish would drive down if she could possibly manage it. But listen to the explanation Sandy’s just had of her vision the day we discovered the cupboard!”

“I object to having it called a vision!” I said. “It was just a memory—coming out.”

When I had finished reading him what Father had written, Michael said, “That’s mighty interesting! And what a piece of luck that you happened to make that visit here when you were a kid.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t have mattered really,” I said. “Aunt Cal has never told us just what Carter Craven said in that note he sent her but I think he must have told her where the will was, at least he gave her a clue.”

“Yes,” put in Eve, “but how do we know that Gopher would ever have given her the note at all if we hadn’t cornered him like a rat in a hole. Just like it to slip his mind—he’s got about the slipperiest mind I ever had the pleasure to deal with.”

“He hasn’t done so badly with this garden though,” Michael observed.

“Would you ever have believed it could look so lovely!” Eve asked.

“Yes. You can do most anything with land if you put enough time and patience into it, providing of course the soil’s fairly good. Next year, I hope it will look even better.”

“In the spring!” Eve said, her eyes shining a little. “Oh, I do hope I shall see it in the spring when the daffodils and tulips first come up!”

“And I’ll probably be grubbing for exams about that time!” Michael said. “But maybe I can get away for a week-end. I’d like to see how those bulbs come up.”

“And us and Circe?” Eve asked teasingly. “Shan’t you want to see us?”

“I hope the frost next winter doesn’t crack that new arm I made for her,” he answered, ignoring the question and looking across to where, above the clean bowl of the fountain, the restored statue stood, veiled today in white cheesecloth.

Miss Rose drove up just then with Mrs. Viner and we hurried out to greet our first guest. “My, how pretty everything looks!” she murmured as we escorted her to a seat. “Seems ’sif that golden glow there by the wall sort of lights up the whole place! And how that larkspur by the fountain has come on! What pride Emily Craven used to take in her larkspur.”

“Next year,” remarked Aunt Cal, coming up, “I shall have asters and mignonette in that bed too.”

“There comes a car up the hill,” I cried. “Maybe it’s Hattie May and Hamish!”

“No,” Michael shook his head. “It’s Captain Trout in Fishers Haven’s one and only taxicab.”

Just behind came a string of other cars, bearing the members of the Ladies Civic Betterment Society.

Miss Rose in a large flowered muslin, which made her look for all the world like a mammoth piece of upholstery, moved among the guests, banishing all vestige of stiffness with her good natured small talk and banter.

“Bless my boots, what a transformation!” exclaimed Captain Trout. “How delighted the old Cap’n would be if he could see it!” he added, turning to Aunt Cal.

“Yes,” she agreed simply, “I think he would approve of what we have done.”

“How is Daisy June getting along?” I asked. “Do you think she misses us any?”

“Well, now I can’t say that I’ve noticed her a-pinin’,” he chuckled. “She’s still able to take a running jump at my back when I ain’t looking.”

“Adam loves it here,” I said. “You ought to see him walk down the hall, waving his tail, as if he were the lost heir restored to his patrimony.”

“Yeah, that’s like him—Caliph always did put on airs!” The Captain chuckled at his own wit.

Gopher dressed in his borrowed white trousers appeared awkwardly carrying a tray. “Hi, Biscuits, what you got here?” Captain Trout demanded.

The sailor set down the cups of raspberry sherbet with an apologetic grin. “Say, Skipper,” he whispered hoarsely, “like to have me stir you up a batch of flapjacks ’fore you go?”

“No, no, certainly not!” Captain Trout took one of the pink filled glasses and passed it to Mrs. Viner. He helped himself to another.

At last came the moment when the sun touched the top of the fountain—the moment I had been waiting for. At a nod from Aunt Cal, Michael disappeared into the house. A moment later I got his signal from the cellar window. Everybody stopped talking as I advanced to the fountain and, reaching up, pulled the cord which held the veil about the statue.

At the same instant, Michael turned the tap in the cellar and the water gushed forth in a myriad sparkling rainbow streams. Everybody clapped! It was exactly as if the delicate figure of the Enchantress poised there had really waved her wand and performed a miracle!

A belated car came puffing up the hill, a green roadster covered with dust. From the seat Hattie May waved frantically. Eve flew down the path, I after her. Hamish peered out at the group about the fountain. “Say,” he demanded, “we ain’t too late for the refreshments are we?”

“No, indeed, there’s lots left,” I told him laughing.

“We had a blow-out of course,” Hattie May said as she climbed out. “My how pretty everything looks!”

As we came up the path Hamish caught sight of Gopher collecting plates. “My aunt!” he exclaimed, “Mean to say you let that fellow go round loose?”

“Oh,” giggled Eve. “he’s quite tame now really—just like the garden. You’d be surprised!”

Eve came out with a heaping tray. “Hasn’t anything more queer been happenin’, I suppose?” Hamish inquired hopefully between mouthfuls.

“No, I’m afraid not,” I answered. “No more mysteries—except of course what became of the china duck. And I’m afraid that’ll never be solved.”

Hamish set down his empty plate regretfully. “By the way,” he remarked, “I brought along a few little souvenirs I picked up on the way. They’re out in the car.”

“More gifts! Oh, Hamish!”

After the other guests had departed Hamish distributed his presents. There was a vanity case for Aunt Cal whose countenance to date has been innocent of make-up; shell-covered workboxes for Eve and me; a combination pocket knife and can opener for Michael and a huge heart-shaped box of chocolates for Miss Rose.

“Oh, you cruel boy,” Miss Rose cried, “to tempt me so!” She selected a plump one before passing the box.

As Aunt Cal turned to walk with Mr. Templeton to his car Hattie May whispered quite loudly, “I must say, Sandy, that your aunt has changed. Why she’s like a different person almost.”

“Hush!” I warned, “It’s all Circe’s doing! Magic, you know!”

“I guess more likely it’s two living Circes that have done the trick,” said Miss Rose slyly, selecting another chocolate.

“Oh, you mean you and—and Gopher?” Eve inquired mischievously.

Miss Rose giggled. “Fancy me on a fountain! No, it’s a fact, Cal told me so herself, that she’d never have had the gumption to go ahead with everything if it hadn’t been for you girls. She said she wanted Sandra to have a place to come to that she’d feel was a real home.”

“Oh, Miss Rose,” I cried, “did she really say that?”

Aunt Cal came back down the path, Adam at her heels. “Well now that that’s over,” she said, “we’ll be able to settle down to normal living again! Michael thinks I should put that south pasture into potatoes next year. What do you think, Rose?”

“Farmer Gilpatrick advises!” Eve twinkled at him.

“Well?” he inquired challengingly, “what’s the matter with that? Suppose I should turn into a farmer, what then?”

“Why, then,” she returned, “you’ll buy a farm next to ours—next to Craven House I mean—and make it the very finest, most scientific, up-to-date farm in the whole countryside.”

“Well, you might do worse,” Hamish remarked solemnly. “I read the other day where a fellow was out plowin’ up a field and what d’you s’pose he turned up? An old gold piece, yes sir! And come to find out when he dug down there was a whole lot of ’em buried where some early settler fellow had hid ’em when the Indians was comin’. What d’you think of that!”

“That settles it!” laughed Michael. “I shall become a farmer.”