Curiosity led Peggy to consult the mirror over the mantel. But instead of laughing as Ruth had done, she uttered a tragic groan.
"It's going to take a terrible time to clean that off, if it ever does come off. Oh, Ruth, hurry! When I think of all that will have to be done before six o'clock, my head just whirls."
Ruth took a hasty departure and Peggy, having carried the basket to the kitchen, rushed upstairs to remove all traces of her recent novel entry. As this necessitated an entire change of clothing and the use of a prodigious amount of soap and hot water, her toilet consumed more time than she could well spare. But at length, clean and extremely pink, and attired in a little frock not too good for getting dinner and yet good enough to pass muster at the table, she rushed downstairs and attacked her vegetables. And still no sign of Ruth, bringing the locksmith.
About five o'clock Priscilla arrived ready to lend a hand. Peggy answered her ring at the window, instead of at the door, and after a brief conversation, the tall Priscilla made an unconventional entry. Amy arriving twenty minutes later was admitted by the same entrance. The girls made themselves useful and speculated on what was detaining Ruth.
"I don't mind letting you girls in through the window," groaned Peggy. "But it's different with Hildegarde. And that New York girl. Oh, heavens!"
At five o'clock they were all too nervous to know what they were doing. Peggy set skillets on the stove with nothing in them, and snatched them off again, just in time to avert disaster. She salted vegetables and then forgot and salted them all over again. Priscilla was trying to set the table, and making a poor job of it, as is generally the case when one is doing one thing and thinking of another. Amy, after going to the front window on the average of once in every two minutes to see if Ruth were coming, felt that she could bear inaction no longer.
"Peggy, where's the latch key to your front door?"
"Hanging on a hook over by the umbrellas. But you can't do anything with it. I've tried."
"What a key has done a key can undo," replied Amy, sententiously; and possessing herself of the magic piece of steel, she climbed out of the window and set to work. For fifteen or twenty minutes she continued to fumble at the lock without results, and she was on the point of deciding that she might be putting in the time to better advantage, when something clicked encouragingly. Amy turned the knob, and squealed with delight; for the door opened.
Before she could proclaim her success, Priscilla had made a discovery. Lying across a chair in the kitchen was a garment of some indeterminate shade between blue and black. "What's this?" asked Priscilla, pausing to examine it.