"Just hang a white handkerchief to your shutter before you go, and we'll see it. We'll watch for it!" cried Marcia, inventing the signal on the spur of the moment. And then, impetuously, she added:
"My name is Marcia Brett, and this is Janet McNeil. Won't you tell us yours, if we're to be friends?"
"I'm Cecily Marlowe," she answered, "and I'm so glad to know you." As she spoke she was fumbling with the big key in the lock of the gate, and as the latter swung open, she turned once more to face them, with a little pent-up sob: "I don't know why I'm here—and I'm so lonely!" Then, frightened at having revealed so much, she turned quickly away and shut the gate.
As they listened to her footsteps retreating up the path and the closing of the front door Marcia and Janet turned to each other, a thousand questions burning on their tongues. But all they could exclaim in one breath was:
"Did you ever!"