Nann smiled. “Doesn’t it seem to you that your aunt must be thoroughly rested by this time? I should think that she would like to get out in the sunshine these wonderful bracing mornings. It would do her a lot more good than being cooped up indoors.”
Dories agreed, commenting that old people were certainly queer. It was midmorning when the girls, having completed their few household tasks, again went to the beach to look for the boys. The tide was going out and the waves were quieter. Arm in arm they walked along on the hard sand. Dories was saying, “Aunt Jane told me that she would like to read to herself this morning. I was so afraid that she would ask me to read to her. Not but that I do want to be useful sometimes, but this morning I am so eager to know what the boys are doing. I wish they would come. I wonder where they went.”
“I think I know,” Nann replied. “I believe they are lying flat on the big smooth rock on which we sat that day Gibralter told us the story of the Phantom Yacht. You recall that we had a fine view of the old ruin from there.”
“But why would they be lying flat?” Dories, who had little imagination, looked up to inquire.
“So that they could observe whoever might enter the old ruin without being observed, my child.”
“But, Nann, why would anyone want to get into that dreadful place unless it was just out of curiosity, which, of course, is our only motive.”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” the older girl had to confess, adding: “That is a mystery that we have yet to solve.”
Suddenly Nann laughed aloud. “What’s the joke?” This from her astonished companion. Since Nann continued to laugh, and was pointing merrily at her, Dories began to bristle. “Well, what’s funny about me? Have I buttoned my dress wrong?”
The other maid shook her head. “It’s something about your braids,” she replied.
“Oh, I suppose I put on different colored ribbons. I remember noticing a yellow one near the red.” She swung both of the braids around as she spoke, but the ribbon bows were of the same hue. Tossing them back over her shoulder, she said complacently: “This isn’t the first of April, my dear. There’s nothing the matter with my braids and so—” But Nann interrupted, “Isn’t there? Unbeliever, behold!” Leaping forward, she lifted a braid, held it in front of her friend, and pointed at a bit of crumpled yellow paper. Dories laughed, too.