Nann sprang out of bed, all excited interest. “Dories, what happened? Why did you drop the bell?”
Dories pointed to the floor where it lay. Nann bent to pick it up. Tied to the clapper was a bit of paper and on it was written in the familiar penmanship and with the same red ink, “In eleven days you will know all.”
Instead of acting frightened, Dories’ look was one of triumph. “There now, Mistress Nann,” she exclaimed, “you are always saying that it is not a being supernatural that is leaving these notes. What have you to say about it this morning?”
“That I am truly puzzled,” was the confession Nann was forced to make; “that the joker is much too clever for us, but we’ll catch him yet, if I’m a prophet.” She was dressing as she talked.
Dories, standing near the window, was examining the paper. “It seems to be the sort that packages are wrapped in,” she speculated. Then, after a silent moment and a closer scrutiny, “Nann, do you suppose that it is written with blood?”
“Good gracious, no!” the denial was emphatic. “Why do you ask such an absurd question?”
“Well, that was what the red ink was made of in one of the ghost stories that I read to Aunt Jane yesterday morning.”
Nann, having completed her toilet, went to the window to look out. “Good!” she exclaimed. “There is Gibralter Strait in his little punt boat. He seems to have plenty of time to go sailing. Oh, I remember now. He did tell me that their country school does not open until after Christmas. So many boys are needed to help their fathers on the farms and with the cranberries until snow falls.”
“I suppose I ought to stay at home again this morning and read to Aunt Jane.” Dories’ voice sounded so doleful that her friend whirled about, and, putting loving arms about her, she exclaimed: “Not a bit of it! You may sail with Gibralter this morning and I will stay here and read to your Great-Aunt Jane.”
But when the two girls visited the room of the elderly woman, she told them that she wished to be left quite alone.