Cecily opened her eyes wide. "Other one?" she queried. "Oh, you mean the other person in the house?"
"Why, yes," said Marcia. "The other old lady who sits in the room on the second floor."
"Oh, is it an old lady?" inquired Cecily, in surprise.
"Why, of course! Didn't you know it?" exclaimed Marcia.
"I knew there was some one in there—some invalid. For Miss Benedict has always warned me to be very quiet in going by that door, because some one was ill in there. But she never told me who it was, nor anything more about her. She always waits on her herself. Even when her ankle was hurting her so, she would drag herself out of bed many times a day to go into that room. But tell me, how did you know there was an old lady in there?"
Then Marcia recounted what she had seen on the night the wind tore open the shutter. "How strange this all is," she ended, "that Miss Benedict should never tell you who this person is! Why do you suppose she is keeping it a secret?"
As this was a problem none of them could solve, they could only conjecture vainly about it as they walked along. But by this time they had approached within a block of the house itself, and before they turned the corner once more they all unconsciously halted.
"Cecily," said Marcia, suddenly inspired with a bright idea. "I have the grandest scheme! If Miss Benedict is going to do the marketing after this, perhaps we won't see you again for some time. But I've a plan by which we can hear from each other as often as we like. You take a walk in the garden every night, don't you?"
"No, not always," answered Cecily. "Miss Benedict allows me to, but often I don't care to. It's so dark and—and lonesome."
"Well, after this, be sure to go out every night. Our window, you know, is directly over the garden wall, only three stories up. I'm going to have a long string with a weight attached to it, and fasten it in the window. Every night, after dark, we'll write a note to you, fasten it to the string, and drop it down into the garden among the bushes. You can find it in the dark by feeling for the string, and if you have one written to us, you can fasten it on, and we'll pull it up. Isn't that a dandy idea?"