"Rebecca!" she exclaimed. "'Tis Newington, as true as I live! Newington and Blackman Street!"
Suddenly she sat down in the grass and hid her face in her hands.
"What d'ye mean?" said Rebecca, looking down at her sister with a puzzled expression. "Where's Newington—I never heerd tell of Blackman Street. Air ye thinkin' of Boston, or——"
Phœbe interrupted her by leaping to her feet and starting back to the opening in the wall.
"Come back, Rebecca!" she exclaimed. "Come back quick!"
Rebecca followed her sister in some alarm. Phœbe must have been taken suddenly ill, she thought. Perhaps they had reached one of those regions infected by fevers of which she had heard from time to time.
In silence the two women hurried back to the Panchronicon, whose uncouth form was now quite plainly visible behind the trees into the midst of which it had fallen when the power stored within it was exhausted.
Not until they were safely seated in Rebecca's room did Phœbe speak again.
"There!" she exclaimed, as she dropped to a seat on the edge of the bed, "I declare to goodness, Rebecca, I don't know what to make of it!"
"What is it? What ails ye?" said Rebecca, anxiously.