After a brief stop at Grace's home, the four girls started out, keenly alive to the beauty of the day. The leaves on the trees were beginning to lose their green and put on their dresses of red and gold. Though the sun shone brightly, the air was cool and bracing, and filled one with that vigor and joy of living which makes autumn the most delightful season of the year.
Once outside the gate, the chums unconsciously headed in the same direction.
"I believe we all have the same place in mind," laughed Grace. "I was thinking about a walk to the old Omnibus House."
"'Great minds run in the same channel,'" quoted Jessica.
"I haven't been out there since the spread last year," said Anne.
"I have," said Grace, with a slight shudder. "I am not likely to forget it, either."
"Well we are not apt to meet any more Napoleon Bonapartes out there," said Nora, referring to Grace's encounter with an escaped lunatic, fully narrated in "Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School."
They were nearing their destination when Anne suddenly exclaimed: "Look, girls. Some one is over at the old house. I just saw a man go around the corner!"
The girls looked quickly in the direction of the house. Just then a figure appeared, stared at the approaching girls and began waving his hat wildly, at the same time doing a sort of war dance.
"It's another lunatic," screamed Jessica. "Run, girls, run!"