Leslie pointed to the sign-board over the door. “There it is,—‘Curlew’s Nest.’ There’s something about the name that fascinates me. Don’t you feel so too, Aunt Marcia? I can imagine all sorts of curious and wonderful things about a closed-up house called ‘Curlew’s Nest’! It just fairly bristles with possibilities!”
“What a romantic child you are, Leslie!” smiled her aunt. “When you are as old as I am, you’ll find you won’t be thinking of interesting possibilities in a perfectly ordinary shut-up summer bungalow. It’s a pretty enough name, of course, but I must confess it doesn’t suggest a single thing to me except that I’m cold and want to get back to the fire. Come along, dearie!”
Leslie sighed and turned back, without another word, to lead her aunt to their own abode. One phase of their stay she had been very, very careful to conceal from Miss Marcia. She loved this aunt devotedly, all the more perhaps because she was ill and weak and nervous and very dependent on her niece’s care; but down in the depths of her soul, Leslie had to confess to herself that she was lonely, horribly lonely for the companionship of her parents and sisters and school chums. The loneliness did not always bother her, but it came over her at times like an overwhelming wave, usually when Miss Marcia failed to respond to some whim or project or bubbling enthusiasm. Between them gaped the abyss of forty years difference in age, and more than a score of times Leslie had yearned for some one of her own years to share the joy she felt in her unusual surroundings.
As they stepped on their own veranda, Leslie glanced out to sea with a start of surprise. “Why, look how it’s clouding up!” she exclaimed. “It was as clear as a bell a few minutes ago, and now the blue sky is disappearing rapidly.”
“I knew to-day was a weather-breeder,” averred Miss Marcia. “I felt in my bones that a storm was coming. We’ll probably get it to-night. I do hope the roof won’t leak. We haven’t had a real bad storm since we came, and I dread the experience.”
At eight o’clock that evening it became apparent that they were in for a wild night. The wind had whipped around to the northeast and was blowing a gale. There was a persistent crash of breakers on the beach. To open a door or window was to admit a small cyclone of wind and sand and rain. Miss Marcia sat for a while over the open fire, bemoaning the fact that the roof did leak in spots, though fortunately not over the beds. She was depressed and nervous, and finally declared she would go to bed.
But Leslie, far from being nervous, was wildly excited and exhilarated by the conflict of the elements. When her aunt had finally retired, she hurried on a big mackinaw and cap and slipped out to the veranda to enjoy it better. Rags, whimpering, followed her. There was not much to see, for the night was pitch black, but she enjoyed the feel of the wind and rain in her face and the little occasional dashes of sand. Wet through at last, but happy, she crept noiselessly indoors and went to her own room on the opposite side of the big living-room from her aunt’s.
“I’m glad Aunt Marcia is on the other side,” she thought. “It’s quieter there on the south and west. I get the full force of things here. It would only worry her, but I like it. How lonesome Curlew’s Nest seems on a wild night like this!” She switched off her electric light, raised her shade, and looked over at the empty bungalow. Rags, who always slept in her room, jumped up on the window-seat beside her. The mingled sand and rain on the window prevented her from seeing anything clearly, so she slipped the sash quietly open, and, heedless for a moment of the drenching inrush, stood gazing out.
Only the wall of the house twenty feet away was visible, with two or three windows, all tightly shuttered—a deserted and lonely sight. She was just about to close her window when a curious thing happened. The dog beside her uttered a rumbling, half-suppressed growl and moved restlessly.
“What is it, Rags?” she whispered. “Do you see or hear anything? I’m sure there’s no one around.” The dog grumbled again, half audibly, and the hair along his spine lifted a little.