“Good Injun,” said Mabel. “What are you going to write? I’m out of this because it’s your find.”
Ellen demurred, but Mabel was firm, and finally Ellen wrote:
“Good day to you, fair sir! Seek not to penetrate the mysteries. Desire not the unattainable. Flesh may meet flesh, but spirit cannot behold spirit unless drawn by some heavenly means.
“The Ghost.”
She read it to Mabel, who immediately gave praise. “It’s fine,” she declared; “so delightfully mystifying and obscure. I’ll venture to say that Robert will be devoured with curiosity and won’t waste any time in answering.”
“Wouldn’t it be fatal if some one else should find it?” said Ellen. “I hope no one will. We’d better get away for fear somebody might be lurking in ambush.”
They deposited the message on the shelf and hurried off, giggling and self-conscious, but making up their minds that their correspondent must be one of the campers on Halsey’s Island.
A week slipped away before the girls found another chance to cross the bridge. The little neck of land upon which the old house stood contained no other dwelling, and it was seldom visited by the natives, who shunned it because of its uncanny reputation, while the summer residents found more beautiful spots to attract them. Beatty’s Island was now quite full of visitors, the cottages all open, the boarding-houses crowded. Groups of watchers perched on the rocks, never weary of looking at the waves rolling in. The road was no longer a lonely one. The dispensers of ice-cream and delectable drinks were kept busy in the Little Gray Shop, while the delivery trucks dashed up and down the road at a threatening rate.
The girls had made a number of acquaintances and were much in demand. Picnics, suppers on the rocks, motor-boat parties to some farther island where shore dinners were a feature, informal teas at the cottage of some neighbor, all these took up their time. Ellen was appealed to when her musical ability became known, and every Sunday she took her place at the small organ in the little church.
But in all this time they had not come to know either Robert MacDonald or Tom Clayton. Sometimes as they skimmed past Halsey’s Island in a motor-boat they caught sight of a group of young men busied at some employment outside the tents, or hoisting the sails of a small boat which rode at anchor near by.