The next twenty-four hours were spent in delightful speculation. So her name was Cecily Marlowe! Was she any relation of Miss Benedict? "Marlowe" and "Benedict" were certainly dissimilar enough.

"But then she might be a relation on Miss Benedict's mother's side," suggested Marcia.

"Does it sound likely when you think what she said just at the last—that she didn't know why she was there?" replied Janet, scornfully. "She couldn't be in doubt about it if she were a relation, either come on a visit or there to stay!" Which argument settled that question.

"But where do you suppose she has come from?" marveled Marcia. "She said she'd always lived in a little country village, and she didn't know a thing about American money. She's foreign—that's certain. Even her clothes and her way of speaking show it. But from where?"

"Did you notice that she said 'shilling'?" suggested Janet. "That shows she must be English. She looks English. Now will you tell me how she could get 'way over here from England and not know why she had come?"

"It sounds as if she might have been kidnapped," said Marcia. "Why, Janet! this is precisely like a mystery in a book. Do you realize it? And here we are living right next door to it! It's too good to be true!"

Janet's mind had, however, gone off on another tack. "I can't understand that remark she made about the music. 'TrÄumerei' is certainly about as well known as any piece of classic music. She said she never remembered hearing it, and yet it seems somehow familiar to her. Can you make anything out of that?"

Marcia couldn't. "Maybe it's all just a notion," she suggested helplessly. "Suppose I play some on the violin here in our window right now. She seems to enjoy it so. And maybe she'll open her shutter again."

So they sat on the window-seat, and Marcia played her very best, including the "TrÄumerei," but no golden head appeared from behind the shutter that afternoon.

"Never mind," said Janet. "We'll see her to-morrow, most likely. Perhaps she's busy downstairs now."

"But isn't she the prettiest little thing!" mused Marcia, reminiscently. "The loveliest big blue eyes, and curly golden hair, and such a trusting look in her face, somehow! It went right down to the very bottom of my heart, if it doesn't sound silly to put it that way."

"Yes, I know," agreed Janet. "I felt the same way. But doesn't it strike you queer that—"

"Oh, the whole thing's queer!" interrupted Marcia. "The queerest I ever heard of. I guess you agree with me now, Janet, that I had a secret worth talking about in 'Benedict's Folly.' But let's wait till to-morrow and see what happens."

The morrow came and went, however, and nothing happened at all. Hour after hour the two girls watched for the signal of the white handkerchief, but every shuttered window of the old mansion remained blank. Neither did any one go in or out of the gate. Late in the afternoon Marcia played again at the window, but the sweetest music called forth not a single sign from behind the walls of the house next door. Janet had but one solution to offer.

"They probably didn't need any marketing done to-day, so she naturally didn't go out."

"But why couldn't she have at least looked out a moment from her window?" cried Marcia, disconsolately. "Surely that would have been easy to do, when she said she cared so much for the music. She must have known I was playing just for her!"

"She may have been somewhere in the house where she couldn't. You can't tell, and oughtn't to blame her without knowing," declared Janet, defending the conduct of the mysterious Cecily. "To-morrow we'll see her again, no doubt."

On the morrow her prophecy was fulfilled. They did see her again, but under circumstances so peculiar that they were quite dumfounded.

All the morning they watched and waited in vain for some signal from the upper window. But none came. And the main part of the afternoon passed in precisely the same way. They sat very conspicuously in their own window-seat, so that there could be no doubt in Cecily's mind about their being at home. Marcia even did a little violin practice while they waited. And still there was no sign. Suddenly, about five o'clock, Janet clutched at her chum's arm.

"Look!" she cried.

Marcia looked, and down the path from the front door of the strange house she saw Cecily, dressed to go out, approaching the gate. It was plain that she was bound on another marketing expedition for the basket hung from her arm.

"Well! what do you make of that!" exclaimed Marcia in bewilderment. "Did she signal to us?"

"No, she didn't," returned Janet. "I've watched every minute. She couldn't have forgotten it. But, do you know, there may be some very good reason why she didn't—or couldn't—and perhaps she's hoping we'll see her, and be on hand outside, anyway, as we promised."

"But she must have seen us sitting in the window," argued Marcia. "She might at least have looked up and waved her hand, or nodded, or smiled—or something!"

Cecily, meanwhile, was fumbling with the lock of the big old gate, which seemed, as on a former occasion, to give her a great deal of trouble.

"Come," cried Janet to Marcia. "We'll just about have time to catch her if we hurry." And seizing their hats, the girls hastened downstairs. Their front door closed behind them just as Cecily came abreast of them. What happened next was like a blow in the face!

They had started forward, each with a friendly smile, expecting their new companion to meet them in similar fashion. To their[Pg 49]
[Pg 50]
[Pg 51] amazement, Cecily Marlowe, after the first sudden look into their faces, dropped her eyes, and passed them by without a glance, precisely as if they were utter strangers to her.

Both girls gasped, stared at her departing figure till she turned the corner, and then into each other's faces.

"The ungrateful little thing!" Marcia presently exploded. "If that wasn't the 'cut direct,' I've never seen it before!"

"An unmistakable way of telling us to mind our own business!" even Janet had to admit. "How humiliating! And yet—"

"Yet—what?" demanded Marcia, indignantly. "You're surely not going to try to excuse such inexcusable conduct as that! I see very plainly what's happened. She's thought it over and decided that we were meddlesome and just trying to push an acquaintance with her, and she thinks she's a little too exclusive for that kind of thing, and the simple remedy was to 'cut us dead'!" Marcia was quite out of breath when she finished this summing up.

"It does look like it," Janet admitted. "But somehow, even yet, I can't feel that she wanted to do it—of her own accord, I mean."

But Marcia couldn't see it in that light. They discussed the question hotly, still standing on the front stoop of the apartment. So long, in fact, did they argue it back and forth, turning and twisting the sorry little occurrence, viewing it in every possible light, that before they realized it, Cecily was returning, her errands accomplished. How she had managed to find her way and cross the streets in safety, they could only conjecture.

To reach her own gate, she had to pass directly by where they were standing, and they saw her approaching down the block.

"Here she comes," muttered Marcia. "Now, let's stand right here and watch her as she goes by. She can't help but see us. We'll give her one more chance to do the proper thing."

And so they waited, breathless, expectant, while the girl came rapidly on, her eyes cast down, watching the pavement. But even when she was quite in front of them, she did not once look up, and without comment their gaze followed her retreating figure to the gate.

As she fitted the big key and swung the gate open, they were just about to turn to each other in angry impatience when something else happened.

Cecily Marlowe turned her head and looked back at them for one long, tense moment. It was such a wistful, imploring look, a gaze so full of appeal for forgiveness, so plainly in contrast with her recent conduct, that their hearts melted at once.

Simultaneously they waved their hands and smiled at her, and she smiled back in return, the most adorable little smile in the world, full of trust and confidence and utter friendliness.

Then she hurried in and closed the gate, leaving her two new friends outside more bewildered than ever.