impatiently.

"A quarter?" she queried, and turned questioning eyes to her two friends.

"He means this," said Marcia, picking out a twenty-five-cent piece from the change the girl held.

"Oh, thank you! I don't understand this American money," she explained. And Marcia and Janet added another query to their rapidly growing mental list.

On the way back home, however, she grew silent again, and though the girls chatted back and forth about quite impersonal matters,—the crowded streets, the warm weather, the sights they passed,—she was not to be drawn into the conversation. And the nearer they drew to their destination, the more depressed she appeared to become. At last they reached the gate.

"Shall you be going out again to-morrow?" ventured Marcia. "If so, we will go with you, if you care to have us, till you get used to the streets."

The girl gave her a sudden, pleased glance. "I—I don't know," she said. "You see, Miss Benedict hurt her ankle a day or two ago, and she can't get around much, so—so I'm doing this for her. If she wants me to go to-morrow, I will. I'd be so glad to go with you. How shall I let you know?"

"Just hang a white handkerchief to your shutter before you go, and we'll see it. We'll watch for it!" cried Marcia, inventing the signal on the spur of the moment. And then, impetuously, she added:

"My name is Marcia Brett, and this is Janet McNeil. Won't you tell us yours, if we're to be friends?"

"I'm Cecily Marlowe," she answered, "and I'm so glad to know you." As she spoke she was fumbling with the big key in the lock of the gate, and as the latter swung open, she turned once more to face them, with a little pent-up sob: "I don't know why I'm here—and I'm so lonely!" Then, frightened at having revealed so much, she turned quickly away and shut the gate.

As they listened to her footsteps retreating up the path and the closing of the front door Marcia and Janet turned to each other, a thousand questions burning on their tongues. But all they could exclaim in one breath was:

"Did you ever!"

CHAPTER IV

THE BACKWARD GLANCE

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