“Oh don’t!” implored Phyllis. “Not for a while, at least. It would be so wonderful to have this as a secret of our own and see what we can make of it. Just suppose we could work it out for ourselves!”
“Well—it would be a lark, and I only hope it’s all right. But I’m going to ask you one favor, Phyllis. Please take the little box and keep it at your house, for I don’t want Aunt Marcia to be worried about the matter, and she might come across it if I kept it here. And I must be going in now, or she’ll be worried.” And she thrust the box into Phyllis’s hand.
“Indeed, I’ll keep it gladly and hide it safely, too. This is one secret I won’t have Ted meddling in!” declared Phyllis. “Let’s call the box ‘The Dragon’s Secret.’ He seems to be guarding very successfully! I’ll come back this afternoon and call, and we can talk this over some more. Good-by!”
And she turned away toward the direction of her own bungalow, with “The Dragon’s Secret” carefully concealed beneath her rainproof coat.
CHAPTER IV
IN THE SAND
The northeaster lasted three days. Then it blew itself out, the wind shifted to the northwest, and there was beautiful sparkling weather for the rest of the week.
During this time, the two new friends came to know each other very well indeed. It was not only their little shared mystery that united them—they found they had congenial tastes and interests in very many directions, although they were so different in temperament. Leslie was slight and dark in appearance, rather timid in disposition, and inclined to be shy and hesitant in manner. Phyllis was quite the opposite—large and plump and rosy, courageous and independent, jolly, and often headlong and thoughtless in action. Her mother had died when she was very little, and she had grown up mainly in the care of nurses and servants, from whom she had imbibed some very queer notions, as Leslie was not long in discovering. One of these was her firm belief in ghosts and haunted houses, which not even the robust and wholesome contempt of her father and older brother Ted had succeeded in changing.