“I’ll get you out,” replied Linda. “I’ll pick the lock on the front door, and on your inside door.”
“Can you really? Is there anything you can’t do, Miss Linda Carlton?”
Linda laughed; it was wonderful to find the girl in such good spirits.
“You stay here, Dot,” she said, “and keep Amy—I mean Helen—company. I won’t be long.”
She was right in her surmise; the job did not take long, and she was extremely proud of her new accomplishment. In less than half an hour she opened the heavy door and stepped into the dimly-lighted house. The huge square hall, with its great staircase, the closed shutters, the sparsely furnished rooms cast a gloomy atmosphere. It was just the sort of house a ghost might be expected to haunt.
By means of her flashlight she made her way through the hall to the door where she supposed the kitchen to be. She knocked loudly, calling,
“Yo-ho, girls!”
“Yo, Linda!” was the reassuring reply.
But here it was not necessary to pick the lock, for Mrs. Fishberry had left the key in the door. So Linda merely turned it and walked into the room.
The two girls rushed at each other in joy, and Dot bounded around the house to join in the happy reunion.