“About somebody’s Christmas present? I thought all our Christmas shopping was finished last week.”
“It was. This hasn’t anything to do with presents, but it concerns your Christmas vacation, I believe,” replied Mrs. Gay.
“Oh, that sounds exciting!” exclaimed Mary Louise. Mr. Gay was a detective on the police force, and, knowing his daughter’s keen interest in the solution of crimes, he sometimes discussed his cases with her. Already she had shown marked ability in the same line herself by unraveling two baffling mysteries the preceding summer.
She ran out into the kitchen and poured out a glass of milk for herself and cut a piece of chocolate cake. This brisk weather certainly made her feel hungry, and the refreshments tasted good. Then she dashed upstairs to change into her “snow suit,” a long-trousered costume that happened to be popular with the older girls at the moment. When she was all ready she opened her side window and whistled to her chum, Jane Patterson, who lived across the snow-covered lawn in the house next door.
“Yo, Jane!” she called.
Immediately a corresponding window flew up, and a youthful face appeared at the enclosure.
“Ready!” was the reply. “The boys there yet?”
“I think I hear them,” returned Mary Louise. “Come on over.”
The windows were slammed down simultaneously, and the two girls dashed downstairs to their porches. Before they had finished putting on their goloshes, the boys were at the Gays’ house.
“Left the sled at the gate,” announced Max Miller, Mary Louise’s especial boy-friend in Riverside.