My Mother looked funny.
"Good Gracious," she said. "Are my children developing 'Second Sight'?—First it was the 'Field of Tulips' already written down as their Father's choice before he could even get the words out of his mouth!—And now, hours before the Old Doctor ever even dreamed of the Book's existence they've got his distinctly unique taste in perfumes all—"
"But this isn't the Old Doctor!" I cried out. "She wrote it herself. It's the Lady down at the hotel. It's the—the Empress that the Old Doctor was talking about!"
"The—Empress?" gasped the Old Doctor.
"Well maybe you said 'Princess,'" I admitted. "It was some one from Austria anyway—come to fuss about the old Dun Vorlees place! You said it was! You said that's who it was!—It's the only Strange Lady in the village!"
"What?" gasped the Old Doctor. "What?" He looked at the book. He read the Lady's writing. Anybody could have seen that it wasn't our writing. It was too dressy. He put on his glasses. He read it again.
—the smell of an old tattered baseball glove—that's been lying in the damp grass—side of a brook—June Time.
"Good Lord!" he cried out. "Good Lord!"—He couldn't seem to swallow through his collar. "Not anyone else!" he gasped. "In all the world!—There couldn't possibly be anyone else! It must—It must be little Annie Dun Vorlees herself!"
He rushed to the window. There was a grocery boy driving by.
"Hi! Hi there!" he called out. "Don't mind anybody's orders just now! Take me quick to the Hotel!—It's an Emergency I tell you! She may be gone before I get there!"