At last Alfred arose, saying: “Well, Sister, if we are to visit the post office and then walk home before dark, we would better be going.”
“Wait just one moment,” Bertha urged. “Bob has gone out to hitch up our two-seated sleigh. Oh, here he comes now.”
A comfortable, roomy sleigh appeared and Jack said: “Miss Geraldine, may I accompany you? Alfred and Bob may have the driver’s seat?”
The girl smilingly consented and then bade each of the maidens a gracious farewell. When the sleigh with its jingling bells and prancing horses was out of sight, the girls sank down on their chairs and one and all uttered some exclamation. Then Merry Lee said: “The question before the house is, did she recognize us?”
“I don’t see how she could help recognizing Rose,” Peggy said, to tease. “She looks very much as she did as Jerusy.”
That pretty maiden took the teasing good-naturedly, then tongues and needles flew, until half an hour later when the boys returned. They were laughing merrily when they entered the room and bent over the burning log to warm their hands. The girls looked up from their sewing and Peggy asked eagerly: “Tell us the worst! Did Geraldine recognize us?”
“Yes, she did,” Bob declared. “She told Jack that she knew Peggy at once. She decided, however, that it had been a good lesson for her and she wished Jack to thank you all for having taught her that people may live in the country and not be backwoodsy or rubes.”
“Well, I’m glad she forgives us!” Bertha declared. Then, when the boys had again departed, she added: “But now, to return to the subject we were discussing when we were interrupted. Peggy, have you and Doris found a mystery yet for the Seven Sleuths to unravel?”
“Nary a mystery,” Doris confessed, “but it isn’t Saturday yet. You remember we were to have a week.”
“There might be some kind of a mystery connected with that old Welsley house out on the lake road. If ever a place looked haunted, that one surely does.”