“Yes, we can go. Aunt Jane is going to sleep all of the afternoon.” Then impulsively Dories turned toward the red-headed boy. “Gib,” she exclaimed contritely, “I’m just ever so sorry that I called Aunt Jane queer or cross. Something happened this week which has proved that she is very different in her heart from what we supposed her to be. She has just been achingly lonely for years, and some family affairs which, of course, would interest no one but ourselves, have made her shut herself away from everyone. I’m ever so sorry for her, and I know that from now on I’m going to love her just dearly.”
“So am I,” Nann said very quietly. “I wish we had realized that all this time Miss Moore has been hungering for us to love and be kind to her. We girls sometimes forget that elderly people have much the same feelings that we have.”
“I know,” Dick agreed as they walked four abreast toward the creek where the punt was hid, “I have an old grandmother who is always so happy when we youngsters include her in our good times.” Then he added in a changed tone: “Hurray! There’s the old punt! Now, all aboard!” Ever chivalrous, Dick held out a hand to each girl, but it was to Nann that he said with conviction: “This is the day that we are to solve the mystery.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
A CLUE TO THE OLD RUIN MYSTERY
The voyage up the narrow channel in the marsh was uneventful and at last the four young people reached the opening near the old ruin. They stopped before entering to look around that they might be sure the place was unoccupied. Then Dick crept through the opening in the crumbling wall to reconnoiter. “All’s well!” he called to them a moment later, and in the same order as before the others followed. Everything was just as it had been on their former visit.
Dick flashed his light in the corner where they had seen the picture of old Colonel Wadbury, and the sharp eyes, under heavy brows, seemed to glare at them. Dories, with a shudder, was secretly glad that they were only pictured eyes.
“Sh! Hark!” It was Dick in the lead who, having stopped, turned and held up a warning finger. They had reached the door out of which they had broken a panel the week before.
“What is it? What do you hear?” Nann asked.
“A sort of a scurrying noise,” Dick told her. “Nothing but rats, I guess, but just the same you girls had better wait here until Gib and I have looked around in there. Perhaps you’d better go back to the opening,” he added as, in the dim light, he noted Dories’ pale, frightened face. The younger girl was clutching her friend’s arm as though she never meant to let go. “I’m just as afraid of rats,” she confessed, “as I am of ghosts.”
“We’ll wait here,” Nann said calmly. “Rats won’t hurt us. They would be more afraid of us than even Dori is of them.”