Julia and Sue laughed at this dignified picture of Johnny as a man. By that time they had turned into the other road, and stopped in front of the keeper's house.
"The house is built right on to the lighthouse, and is of the very same kind of stone," remarked Sue.
"Yes," replied Johnny; "and they can go up in the lighthouse, Oliver says, without coming outside; although there is a door, you see, in the outside. I wonder what that building off the other side of the lighthouse is for?"
"That's the place where the steam fog-whistle is," replied Julia. "I was over here in a fog with my father once, and you never heard such a noise as it made."
"I heard it in the distance the other night, and it was bad enough at that," said Johnny. "My father said it was the fog-whistle, but I didn't know it was here at the lighthouse. I must see that, too, and understand about it, some day, when Pierre can come with me."
They were now standing on the stone steps, and Johnny found there was a bell in a little niche at one side of the door. "Why, here's a bell!" he said. "Uncle Sam means to be up with the times, in his buildings, even if they are out in the country. Felix and I pounded away with both hands the other night."
Just after Johnny rang the bell, the door was opened by a rather severe-looking young woman, with sharp gray eyes, and a look that seemed to say, "Tell your business as soon as possible, and have done with it."
Obedient to the look, Johnny said at once, "Can we see Miss Ruth?"
Mrs. Shepard appeared to be astonished. She looked at the visitors a moment before replying, and then said,—
"What do you want to see Ruth for?"