“I accept your point of view, but don’t say you were not invited.”
So the matter was settled to Ellen’s satisfaction, and the next morning saw her two housemates off for what Mabel was pleased to call their “spree.” Ellen busied herself about the house for an hour, then she went down to the rocks with her writing materials, accomplished a letter to Caro, and one to Jeremy Todd; then Beulah called her to dinner, so the morning went. Beulah, it may be said, had made the acquaintance of several maids of like color, and enjoyed with them hilarious laughter, mirthful pokes and digs when some appreciated joke was made, and feasts either on the rocks or off in the woods.
“Me an’ some other colored ladies is plannin’ to have a little fessible in de woods dis afternoon,” she confided to Ellen. “Miss Rindy, she say she don’t min’. I be back in time to git supper. Yuh don’t keer, does yuh, Miss Ellen, if I leaves yuh to yo’ own wicked revices?”
Ellen laughed. “I don’t mind in the least, so long as you’re back in time to get supper. If I’m not here, you know where to find the key.”
“We goin’ have a gran’ feas’,” Beulah gave further information; “ice-cream an’ bananas, an’ peanuts and half a watermillion.”
“Take care you don’t make yourself ill,” Ellen warned.
“Law, Miss Ellen, it tek mo’n dem little things to discommoderate mah stummick. Miss Rindy say we has lobsters fo’ supper, an’ I sho’ wants room fo’ dem. I sutt’nly does decline to lobsters.”
“I think you’d better decline them altogether after all that other mess,” responded Ellen, who was busy formulating her own plans for the afternoon. She had just conceived the idea of paying a parting visit to the haunted house. It was barely possible, she considered, that a farewell message had been left by the unknown Robert. It would do no harm to see.
She set off on her walk, making her way leisurely along the shore, deciding that it would be the more interesting route when one was alone. She stopped to look in the little pools where starfish, sea-urchins, and various other sea creatures made their abode. From a pebbly beach she picked up two or three talisman stones, gray, banded about by a dark streak. Here, too, seaweeds, brilliant green and feathery, pink or yellow, attracted her. “Mabel and I must come here and gather some,” she told herself.
Leaving the beach, she climbed the rocks, cut across a field, and reached the road which led to the bridge. There was no one in sight when she came up to the haunted house, which she entered in the usual way, by means of a back door. She tiptoed across the big room and opened the cupboard by the side of the great fireplace, but before she could look to see if anything was there she started back, for the strains of a violin came clearly to her ears. She looked wildly around for a way of escape, for the music was coming nearer and nearer. It was just outside! It was at the door! Ellen rushed toward the stairway, and had just set foot on the first step when a voice said: “Don’t run away. I am perfectly harmless.”