“You haven’t really sold out?” Ruth demanded incredulously.

“Going, going, going, gone!” sang back Nancy. “Manny is a wonder. She just sells and goes on with her preparations, and girls, when my store is all cleaned out I wouldn’t wonder but we’ll have a model class room, instead of the Whatnot Shop.” Nancy was flitting around like some full grown elf. The three girls, Isabel was with them, were out on the broad sloping grounds surrounding Ruth’s home, and it was perfectly plain that Nancy was already enjoying her freedom from business.

“I think it’s splendid,” Isabel joined in. “We took millinery last August, you know, so we don’t want any more hat making. Mother is simply thrilled, as Vera would say, and you know, Nan, Vera is due back Tuesday. I guess the stores ran out of post cards and she couldn’t live at Beverly without cards. I’ve got enough of mine to paper our attic room.”

“And you’d never guess,” enthused Nancy, “that salesman who came in with the fishing tackle for our big sale, you know, is going to send Manny a gas range! Just think of it, a gas range for us to use, to practice cooking on.”

“For nothing?” Ruth inquired.

“For the advertising. It seems, a demonstrator for a special line of gas ranges used to go to Raleigh, that’s Manny’s old school, and, of course, when the salesman came in to sell and we weren’t buying,” she was drawling her words to assume an imposing air, “of course,” she continued, “he became deeply interested in our plans, and at once offered to send his friend, the lady demonstrator, out to make plans with Manny.”

“And we’re to be demonstrated,” chimed in Isabel, imitating Nancy’s twang. “I choose pie. I want my picture 'took’ curling the edge of a lemon meringue,” and she executed a few very 'curly’ steps to illustrate.

There was no denying it. Nancy was happy on these the first days of her real vacation. It had been splendid, of course, to have twenty-five dollars of her very own to offer to advance Miss Manners, to clear up the rent worry, but the store had not been all fun, she was willing to admit that.

“And do you know, girls,” Nancy confided, “we, mother and I, had some doubts about the way Miss Townsend would take the news? Do sit down, Belle,” she broke off. “How can I tell a story while you’re doing hand-springs?”

“These are flip-flaps,” insisted Isabel. “Just watch this one.”

She was leaning with both hands on a long low bench, and the “flip” consisted of a violent spring of both feet from the ground. After bringing the feet down again with the unavoidable jerk, she performed the “flop” by pivoting around until she sat on the bench and stuck both her feet out straight in front of her.

“It’s very pretty,” commented Nancy. “But if you want to hear my story you have got to flop. I insist upon a sitting audience.”

This demand restored comparative quiet and Nancy continued with her narrative.

“I was telling you about Miss Townsend,” she went on. “You just should see that lady. She’s all 'set up.’ We understood she was a nervous wreck—”

“She was,” interrupted Ruth, “but I heard mother say her brother’s business affairs are being mysteriously adjusted. Maybe that’s why she has become rejuvenated.”

“Yes, that’s exactly it,” snapped Nancy. “And how the great, grand trick worked is one of the stories we have missed. I never saw such a place as Long Leigh for floating stories that no one can explain. Miss Townsend talked all around her good luck, but never touched it. Of course, I couldn’t be so rude—”

“Of course you couldn’t,” mocked Isabel.

“Just the same,” retorted Nancy, “I did ask right out straight, without hint or apology, where—Mr. Sanders lived.”

“And you got snubbed for your pains,” flung in Ruth.

“Nothing of the kind, I became informed for my pains,” asserted Nancy.

“Land sakes tell us!” pleaded Isabel. “First thing you know I’ll hear our car, and miss the—mystery.”

“Well,” began Nancy, deliberately and provokingly, “I asked her: 'Where does Mr. Sanders live?’ And just as I was gulping hard to control my emoting emotions, Miss Townsend shook her necklace like a dinner bell, and said softly—”

Nancy paused. The girls were threatening to throw her over the bench into the flower bed but she seemed about ready to divulge the secret, so presently they desisted.

“Well,” she said, “Miss Townsend answered, 'Mr. Sanders lives right here in this hotel. He moved in yesterday and the poor man needed the change after all he’s been through.’ Now girls,” pouted Nancy, “did you ever see anything as mean as that? Just when I’m free to dig up the wild and woolly mystery, our hero goes and rents a room in the Waterfall House,” and she affected a pose intended to excite pity, but in reality causing mirth.

“I see it all!” cried Isabel, jumping up on the bench and laying a sprawled hand over the heart location. “All, girls, all.” Her voice was droning like a school boy reciting the Charge of the Light Brigade. “What happened was this!”

“This!” interrupted Ruth, pinching Isabel’s ankles until she literally fell from her perch.

“Whow!” yelled Isabel. “Can’t one elocute without being plucked by cruel hands? I tell you, girls, we have lost a lot of fun in not keeping up with our little brothers.” This was said in a very different and quite serious tone. “If you were to ask Ted, Nancy, very confidentially, what is or was the secret of the hidden treasure place, I’m almost sure he would tell you. He knows!” she declared loudly, “and so does my brother Gerard know, but he won’t tell me.”

“Then it is or was a question of hiding a treasure,” reflected Nancy. “I’m so sorry it is only that. I perfectly hate treasure mysteries, they’re so horribly common. I had in mind some sort of great, grand, spooky, now-you-see-me and now-you-don’t trick. That would have been heaps more fun than just the old hidden treasure business. Well, at any rate, we seem to have missed it, for Mr. Sanders is really living at the hotel,” she wound up finally.

“Is that any reason why we shouldn’t find out the secret?” demanded Ruth. “It seems to me we would be better able to do so, now that every one else has suddenly grown rich, and there’s no more danger of getting folks into trouble by prying into their business. I just wish Sibyl Sanders would come up again. I fancy she would be just tickled to tell us the whole thing,” declared Ruth.

“I must trot along,” Nancy suddenly announced. “And girls, please don’t forget about the first lesson in domestic science, to be held at the residence of—”

A loud and insistent honking of a motor horn interrupted Nancy’s flattering announcement, and presently all three girls were scampering down to the roadside to pile into Gerard’s Duryea car, for Isabel’s brother was taking them for a ride into town, ostensibly to do some important family errands, but really to have one of those unplanned jolly times that go to make up the happy summer time.

“I must be back by five,” warned Nancy. But her companions only pushed her back further in the over crowded car-seat as they sailed along.