It was midmorning when Dories and the small boy returned from the shopping expedition. They went at once to the sewing room, but their mother was not there. They looked in the living room and in the kitchen. “Mother, where are you?” they both called, but there was no reply.
“Maybe she’s upstairs,” Peter suggested.
“Of course. How stupid for me to forget that we have an upstairs to our house.” Dories felt strangely excited as she ran up the circling front stairway calling again and again, but still there was no reply. Down the long upper corridor they went, opening one door and another, beginning to feel almost frightened at the stillness.
Then Dories exclaimed, “Oh, maybe she’s gone over to Mrs. Doran’s for a moment. I guess she couldn’t do any sewing until we came back with the silk.” They were about to descend the back stairs when they heard a noise in the garret overhead.
The frail boy caught his sister’s hand and held it tight. “Do you suppose it’s ghosts,” he whispered.
“No, of course not,” the girl replied. The attic was a low, dark, cobwebby place hardly high enough to stand in, and they never went there. “There are no ghosts. Mother said so.”
“Then maybe it’s a rat scratching around,” the boy suggested, “or that wild barn cat may have got in somehow. Do you dare open the door, Dori, and call up?”
“Of course I do, but first I’ll creep up a little way and look.” Very quietly Dories opened the door and stealthily ascended the dark, short stairway. All was still in the dusky, musty attic. Then a light flashed for a moment in a far corner. Truly frightened, Dories turned and hurried down the stairs. Quick steps were heard above: then a familiar voice called, “Dories, is that you, dear? Why are you stealing about in that way? Come up a moment, daughter! I want you to help me drag this old trunk out of the corner.”
Then, when the girl, with Peter following, appeared on the top step, the mother explained: “I thought I’d be down before you could get back. I have news for you, Dori. Just after you left, a night letter was delivered. In it your Great-Aunt Jane said that she had entirely given up her plan to spend a month at Siquaw Point until she received your letter. She had decided that if you were so rude as to ignore her invitation, you were not the kind of a girl she wished to know, even if you are her niece, but your letter caused her to change her mind. She wishes you to meet her this afternoon in Boston and go directly from there to Siquaw Point.”
“O, Mother, how terrible!” Dories was truly dismayed. “I won’t have time to let Nann know, and she was to meet me at the station. That was the one redeeming feature about the whole thing.”