Strolling into the patio with Eleanor next morning, Miss Martha Carroll was treated to a surprise. Passing one of the rustic seats set at intervals about the patio, her eyes chanced to come to rest on an astonishingly familiar object. It was nothing more nor less than a fat, red-covered volume lying on the seat before which she had paused in sheer amazement.

“Why—where——” she stammered, adjusting her eye-glasses and staring hard at the gilt-lettered title, “The Interrupted Quest,” which conspicuously adorned the book’s front cover.

“This is really amazing!” she exclaimed, addressing Eleanor, who had halted beside her.

“What is it, Miss Martha?”

Eleanor looked wonderingly curious. She had not the remotest idea of the cause of Miss Martha’s agitation.

“This is the book that disappeared from the beach yesterday morning,” emphasized Miss Carroll. “How, I should like to know, does it happen to be here?”

“Why!” Eleanor’s blue eyes grew round with surprise. “That’s queer, isn’t it?”

“Too queer by far,” was the displeased answer.

“Oh, look!”

Eleanor had picked up the book from the seat. As she raised it, a slip of paper fluttered to the stone floor of the patio. Stooping, she gathered it in. Written on it in pencil was the single word: “Gracias.”

“It’s meant for ‘gracious,’ I guess,” puzzled Eleanor, “only it isn’t spelled correctly. I really believe it must have been that queer girl Bee saw who took the book. She’s honest, at least. She returned it. But why in the world did she write ‘gracious’ on that slip of paper? Here come the girls. May I tell them, Miss Martha?”

“Of course.”

Miss Carroll had seated herself on the bench, a decided frown between her brows. She did not in the least relish this latest performance on the part of the elflike stranger. The unexpected return of the book indicated that the odd little prowler was evidently, as Eleanor said, honest. Yet the fact remained that she was a prowler, which annoyed Miss Martha considerably.

“The lost is found!” Eleanor called triumphantly across the patio to the approaching trio of girls. “What do you think of this?”

She held up the book for them to see.

“Why, it is Auntie’s lost book, isn’t it? Where did it come from, Nellie?”

Patsy’s face registered a mystified surprise which was also reflected on the features of her companions.

“We found it lying on that seat,” explained Eleanor. “This slip of paper was tucked into it.”

Patsy took the bit of paper which Eleanor proffered. Mabel and Bee eagerly peered at it over her shoulder as she held it up and inspected the one word written on it. Her brows contracted in a puzzled frown.

“Humph!” she ejaculated. “I don’t see—-”

“I do,” interrupted Mabel with a little laugh. “That word ‘gracias’ is Spanish for ‘thank you.’”

“Then my wood nymph is Spanish!” Bee cried out. “It was she who took the book. The whole thing is as plain as daylight. She only borrowed it over night to read. Miss Martha’s pretty white parasol didn’t interest her at all. It was the book that took her eye. And why? Because she wanted to read it, of course.”

“Go ahead, Sherlock,” teased Patsy. “What next?”

“Well——” Bee laughed and looked slightly confused. “We know, too, that she is honest, or——”

“That’s just what I said,” interposed Eleanor.

“Really, Beatrice, I can hardly imagine a wild-looking girl such as you have described as having literary tastes,” broke in Miss Martha drily. “It is far more reasonable to assume that the bright color of my book caught her eye. She may have thought it a picture book. Finding out that it was not, some strange impulse of her own caused her to return it. Her methods seem to me decidedly primitive. Why doesn’t she come out and show herself openly, instead of dodging about under cover like a young savage?”

“She is probably just awfully shy,” staunchly defended Patsy. “She can’t really be quite a savage. She wrote ‘thank you’ on that bit of paper. That proves two things. She knows how to write and is not too ignorant to be polite.”

“I don’t consider prowling about in the bushes and spying upon strangers marked indications of politeness,” was Miss Carroll’s satirical return. “I can’t say I relish the prospect of having this young imp bob up at us unexpectedly at every turn we make.”

The Wayfarers giggled in unison at this remark. Miss Martha did not resent their mirth. She even smiled a little herself, a fact which Patsy shrewdly noted. It informed her that her aunt was not seriously prejudiced against the will-o’-the-wisp little stranger. Like everything else at Las Golondrinas, this new feature of mystery made strong appeal to Patsy. She was inwardly resolved eventually to hunt down the elusive, black-eyed sprite and make her acquaintance.

With this idea in mind she now made energetic announcement:

“I’m going to interview Carlos this minute and learn a few things about the natives. Anybody who wants to come along has my gracious permission. If nobody wants to, then I’m going just the same. He’s down at the stable this morning. Dad said so.”

“I’ll go,” accepted Bee. “I have almost as much curiosity as you.”

“I don’t feel like going out in the hot sun,” Eleanor said. “It’s so nice and cool here in the patio. I have no curiosity.”

“You mean energy,” corrected Bee.

“I have neither,” beamed Eleanor, “so just run along without me. You can tell me all about what Carlos said when you come back. I’ll be right here waiting for you.”

“You may wait a long while,” jeered Mabel. “I’m not so lazy as you. I’m going with the girls and practice my Spanish on Carlos.”

“I hope he’ll survive it,” retaliated Eleanor.

“You should worry. Adios.”

Mabel waved a derisive farewell to her sister as she turned to follow Patsy and Bee, who had already started for the main exit to the patio, which opened onto the driveway.

Arm in arm, the trio followed the drive, coming at last to the stable, a rambling stone structure situated at some distance below the house.

“There’s Carlos now! He looks like a cowboy, doesn’t he?”

Patsy had spied her father’s new man standing in front of the stable engaged in lighting a cigarette. Attired in an open-necked flannel shirt, brown corduroy trousers and a weather-stained sombrero, the Mexican presented a rather picturesque appearance, or so the Wayfarers thought.

Immediately he caught sight of the three girls, the man’s dark features grew lowering. He made a move as though to enter the stable door, then stood still, regarding his advancing visitors with sullen indifference.

“You speak to him, Mab,” urged Patsy in an undertone. “Say something to him in Spanish.”

“Oh, I can’t,” demurred Mabel. “What shall I say?”

“Say ‘good-day’ in Spanish,” prompted Patsy. “Go ahead.”

Raising her voice, Mabel called out politely: “Buenos dias, seÑor.”

The man made no effort to doff his sombrero in response to this hail. Neither did he leave off smoking his cigarette.

“I spik English,” he announced in a sulky tone that suggested affront rather than appreciation of being thus addressed in his native tongue.

“So much the better for us then.”

Patsy now became spokesman. There was a gleam of lively resentment in her gray eyes, born of the man’s ungracious behavior.

For an instant the two regarded each other steadily. Something in the girl’s resolute, unflinching gaze caused the man’s small black eyes to waver. He glimpsed in that direct glance the same determined will he had already discovered the “SeÑor Carroll” possessed.

As if unwillingly impelled to break the silence he mumbled sulkily: “What do you desire?”

“To ask you a few questions,” tersely returned Patsy. “My father tells me that you used to work for Mr. Fereda, the old Spanish gentleman who once owned this estate. So you must know something of the Feredas, and also of the few persons who live in this vicinity.”

Patsy’s former intent to be affable had completely vanished. Decidedly miffed by the man’s too evident surliness, she spoke almost imperiously.

“Las Golondrinas covers much ground. I know a little; not much,” was the evasive answer.

“I am sure you must know something of the queer old woman who lives in a little cottage outside the estate, and just beyond the orange groves,” Patsy coolly challenged. “Who is she and how long has she lived there?”

“Ah, yes, I know.”

Carlos blew a cloud of cigarette smoke into the air and indifferently watched it drift away.

“She is Rosita,” he shrugged. “Always she has lived there. As children she and old Manuel played together. Her father was the servant of his father, Enrico Fereda. Rosita is the widow for many years.”

Three pairs of alert ears avidly picked up the name “Enrico.” Here it seemed was still another member of the Fereda family.

“Is she crazy?”

It was Mabel who now tactlessly interposed with this blunt question.

It had an electrical effect upon Carlos. His attitude of bored indifference left him. His lax shoulders straightened with an angry jerk. His black eyes narrowed in sinister fashion.

“You spik of my grandmother, seÑorita!” he rebuked, drawing himself up with an air of offended dignity.

“I beg your pardon,” Mabel said hastily, her color rising.

In spite of her embarrassment she was seized with an irresistible desire to laugh. Realizing that laughter was imminent, she turned to Patsy with: “I’m going back to the house. I’ll see you later,” and ingloriously retired from the scene, leaving Patsy and Bee to conduct the remainder of the interview.

“Why the seÑorita so spik of my grandmother? You have seen her?”

Carlos threw away his cigarette and appeared for the first time to take an interest in things. Bee thought she detected a faint note of concern in his voice. She had been watching him closely and had already decided that he knew a great deal more about Las Golondrinas and its environments than he pretended to know.

“We saw your grandmother’s cottage the other day from the orange groves. We walked over to it. Your grandmother came out of the cottage and asked us who we were. When we told her and tried to ask her some questions about the Fereda family, she screamed and raved at us and ordered us to go away and not come back. She behaved and talked very much like a crazy person.”

It was Bee who purposely made this somewhat full explanation. She had a curious conviction that her recital of old Rosita’s wild outburst was a piece of news to Carlos, and that it did not please him.

“Rosita is not loco,” Carlos shook his head in sullen contradiction. “What you want know ’bout the family de Fereda? Why you want know?”

As Patsy’s original intention had been to quiz Carlos about the Feredas, she now hailed the opportunity. The identity of Rosita having been established and her sanity vouched for by her grandson, at least, Patsy was eager to go on to the Feredas themselves. Carlos appeared, too, to be thawing out a trifle. She had, at least, aroused his curiosity.

“We would like to know the history of the Feredas because we think it would be interesting. We know by the portraits in the picture gallery that they were a very old family,” she began eagerly. “Do you know anything about those portraits? Have you ever been in the gallery?”

“I have been; remember nothing,” was the discouraging response. “Of the history this family know nothing.”

Carlos’ face had resumed its mask of indifference. Only his black eyes held a curiously alert expression which watchful Bee did not fail to note.

Patsy looked her disappointment. She had hoped to extract from Carlos some information not only about the Feredas but also concerning the portrait which so greatly interested her. Failing, she next bethought herself of the mysterious wood nymph.

“The other day my father saw a pretty young girl with black eyes and long black hair in our orange groves,” she began afresh. “My friend, Miss Forbes,” Patsy indicated Bee, “also saw her in the woods near our bathing beach. Can you tell me who she is? She certainly must live not far from here.”

A swift flash of anger flitted across the Mexican’s face. It was gone almost instantly.

“I have not seen,” he denied. “Now I go. I have the work to do.”

Wheeling abruptly he started off across the grass, almost on the run, and was soon lost to view among the trees.