heard Cecily's light footsteps

THE GIRL NEXT DOOR

CHAPTER I

MARCIA'S SECRET

"Marcia Brett, do you mean to tell me—"

"Tell you—what?"

"That you've had a secret two whole months and never told me about it yet? And I'm your best friend!"

"I was waiting till you came to the city, Janet. I wanted to tell you; I didn't want to write it."

"Well, I've been in the city twelve hours, and you never said a word about it till just now."

"But, Janet, we've been sight-seeing ever since you arrived. You can't very well tell secrets when you're sight-seeing, you know!"

"Well, you might have given me a hint about it long ago. You know we've solemnly promised never to have any secrets from each other, and yet you've had one two whole months?"

"No, Jan, I haven't had it quite as long as that. Honest! It didn't begin till quite a while after I came; in fact, not till about three or four weeks ago."

"Tell me all about it right away, then, and perhaps I'll forgive you!"

The two girls cuddled up close to each other on the low couch by the open window and lowered their voices to a whisper. Through the warm darkness of the June night came the hum of a great city, a subdued, murmurous sound, strangely unfamiliar to one of the girls, who was in the city for the first time in all her country life. To the other the sound had some time since become an accustomed one. As they leaned their elbows on the sill and, chins in hand, stared out into the darkness, Marcia began:

"Well, Jan, I might as well commence at the beginning, so you'll understand how it all happened. I've been just crazy to tell you, but I'm not good at letter-writing, and there's such a lot to explain that I thought I'd wait till your visit.

"You know, when we first moved to this apartment, last April, from 'way back in Northam, I was all excitement for a while just to be living in the city. Everything was so different. Really, I acted so silly—you wouldn't believe it! I used to run down to the front door half a dozen times a day, just to push the bell and see the door open all by itself! It seemed like something in a fairy-story. And for the longest while I couldn't get used to the dumb-waiter or the steam-heat or the electric lights, and all that sort of thing. It is awfully different from our old-fashioned little Northam—now isn't it?"

"Yes, I feel just that way this minute," admitted Janet.

"And then, too," went on Marcia, "there were all the things outside to do and see—the trolleys and stores and parks and museums and the zoo! Aunt Minerva said I went around 'like a distracted chicken' for a while! And beside that, we used to have the greatest fun shopping for new furniture and things for this apartment. Hardly a bit of that big old furniture we brought with us would fit into it, these rooms are so much smaller than the ones in our old farm-house.

"Well, anyhow, for a while I was too busy and interested and excited to think of another thing—"

"Yes, too busy to even write to me!" interrupted Janet. "I had about one letter in two weeks from you, those days. And you'd promised to write every other day!"

"Oh well, never mind that now! You'd have done the same, I guess. If you don't let me go on, I'll never get to the secret! After a while, though, I got used to all the new things, and I'd seen all the sights, and Aunt Minerva had finished all the furnishing except the curtains and draperies (she's at that, yet!), and all of a sudden everything fell flat. I hadn't begun my music-lessons, and there didn't seem to be a thing to do, or a single interest in life.

"The truth is, Jan, I was frightfully lonesome—for you!" Here Marcia felt her hand squeezed in the darkness. "Perhaps you don't realize it, but living in an apartment in a big city is the queerest thing! You don't know your neighbor that lives right across the hall. You don't know a soul in the house. And as far as I can see, you're not likely to if you lived here fifty years! Nobody calls on you as they do on a new family in the country. Nobody seems to care a rap who you are, or whether you live or die, or anything. And would you believe it, Janet, there isn't another girl in this whole apartment, either older or younger than myself! No one but grown-ups.

"So you can see how awfully lonesome I've been. And as Aunt Minerva had decided not to send me to high school till fall, I didn't have a chance to get acquainted with any one of my own age. Actually, it got so I didn't do much else but moon around and mark off the days till school in Northam closed and you could come. And, oh, I'm so glad you're here for the summer! Isn't it gorgeous!" She hugged her chum spasmodically.

"But to go on. I'm telling you all this so you can see what led up to my doing what I did about—the secret. It began one awfully rainy afternoon last month. I'd been for a walk in the wet, just for exercise, and when I came in, Aunt Minerva was out shopping. I hadn't a new book to read nor a blessed thing to do, so I sat down right here by the window and got to thinking and wondering why things were so unevenly divided—why you, Jan, should have a mother and father and a big, jolly lot of brothers and sisters, and I should be just one, all alone, living with Aunt Minerva (though she's lovely to me), with no mother, and a father away nearly all the time on his ship.

"And it seemed as if I just hated this apartment, with its little rooms, like cubbyholes, all in a row. I longed to be back in Northam. And looking out of the window, I even thought I'd give anything to live in that big, rambling, dingy, old place next door, beyond the brick wall, for at least one could go up and down stairs to the different rooms.

"And then, if you'll believe me, Jan, as I stared at that house it began to dawn on me that I'd never really 'taken it in' before—that it was a very strange-looking old place. And because I didn't have another mortal thing to do, I just sat and stared at it as if I'd never seen it before, and began to wonder and wonder about it. For there were a number of things about