with similar characters all down the first page. A glance through the rest of the long thin book revealed the same array of bewildering symbols to the very last leaf, where the back cover was missing.
The four sat for a moment in silent astonishment, trying to make some sense out of the riddle. Suddenly Margaret had an idea.
"I know! It's shorthand! I've read that that is writing with funny curves and dots and wiggly lines."
"No," Corinne gently corrected her, "I don't think it's shorthand, Margaret. I saw some shorthand that Father's stenographer wrote once, and it was quite different from this. Besides, this seems quite old, as if it were done many years ago, and shorthand's a comparatively modern invention, I think."
"Well, then, it must be Chinese or Syrian or Russian or something like that!" asserted Jess. "I've seen lots of signs over the stores of foreigners that don't look so very different from this. Or—oh, I know now! it's Greek!"
Corinne laughed. "No indeed, it isn't Greek!" she declared. "Father taught me the Greek alphabet when I was a tiny girl, and made me learn to know the letters. I'm going to study it when I go to college. This is entirely different. I don't believe they're letters of any other language, either."
She sat in frowning thought over the strange page for several minutes, while the others watched her in breathless interest. They, having no further solutions to offer, threw themselves unreservedly on her greater resourcefulness. Jess, meanwhile, refilled the chocolate-cups, and Bess passed the cake, while Margaret reveled in such excitement as she had never before experienced. Corinne still remained thoughtfully turning the pages. Suddenly she exclaimed:
"I have it!—at least, I think so!"