Meanwhile, Margaret was passing the slow days in a fever of impatience and baffled expectation. Now that she no longer had her mind occupied by puzzling out the curious old journal and could only sit and wait for the results of Corinne's work, she grew terribly restless. So much so, indeed, that the lynx-eyed Sarah, who watched her beloved charge like a cat, made up her mind that Margaret was beginning to have symptoms of a real fever. She prepared, therefore, a huge bowl of boneset tea to be taken in instalments.
Now, if there was any one thing under the sun that Margaret hated more than another, it was boneset tea! And, moreover, in this case she knew that there was absolutely no need of the remedy. But this she dared not confide to Sarah lest she awaken fresh suspicion in that handmaiden's already too suspicious mind. So she swallowed her bitter doses uncomplainingly, and longed for Corinne's coming for more reasons than one!
And then at last, six days later, Corinne came flying home with the twins one afternoon, and all three burst in unexpectedly on the delighted Margaret. Corinne was armed with a load of volumes that were plainly not school-books, and these she planked down on the floor beside the invalid-chair with just one brief remark:
"I've got it!"
Questions and inquiries were hurled at her thick and fast, but not one of them would she answer till all were seated about Margaret's chair in the usual half-circle by the open fire. Then she began quietly, but with much suppressed excitement in her voice:
"Yes, girls, I've got it—at last! I'm going to tell you all about it, and you're going to have the surprise of your lives! It took me a long while before I struck just the right clue. I've spent about every afternoon reading at the library near us. I even went up to the big one at Forty-second Street yesterday. And every evening at home has found me still digging at it. I've neglected my school work completely, and have failed in everything this week; but I don't care!
"Margaret's a trump! She put us all on the right track in the first place by sensibly suggesting the Revolution. That was fine! But, of course, the subject was a big one and concerned the whole thirteen original colonies. In thinking it over, I decided that since Alison came from Bermuda, the 'city' she keeps speaking of would most likely be the nearest one to Bermuda. On looking it up, I found the nearest was Charleston, South Carolina. So I started in and hunted up every bit of Revolutionary history I could find about Charleston, but never a thing did I strike that helped a bit.
"Then I gave that up and tried another city. As there didn't seem to be any very likely places south of Charleston, I turned north and tried Richmond, Baltimore and Philadelphia. Not a single thing in any one of them that threw a ray of light on our troubles! Finally, I began on New York—and hit it right away!" Her listeners gave a little jump. "Yes, right here in old New York. And come to think of it, that was the most likely place, after all, and I might have saved myself all that other bother, if only I'd used a little common sense!"
"But how did you know right away that it was New York?" demanded Margaret.
"Why, the simplest thing in the world! Almost the first thing I came across, in reading up about New York during the Revolution, was about a place called—Richmond Hill!"