“What on earth is the matter?”
Seated on a bench beside Mabel and Eleanor, Bee sprang up in alarm as Patsy fairly tore into the patio and dropped limply upon another seat.
“Oh, girls, the picture!” she exclaimed. “That cavalier! He moved! I’m sure he did! It gave me the creeps! I was hustling through the gallery and I heard a faint, queer noise. I can’t describe it. It seemed to come right from the middle of the gallery. I looked toward that picture and it moved, or else the cavalier moved. I don’t know which.”
“You just thought you saw something move,” soothed Bee, sitting down beside her chum and patting her hand. “It was probably the way the light happened to strike on the picture that made it seem so. As for a queer sound! Every sound echoes and re-echoes in these old corridors. We heard you bang your door clear down here. You must have heard an echo of that bang in the gallery.”
“I’m a goose, I guess.” Patsy sheepishly ducked her head. “I never thought of the light falling like that on the picture. That’s what I saw, I suppose.”
“What has happened, Patsy?” called a dignified but anxious voice from the balcony. Miss Martha stood leaning over the rail looking down concernedly at her niece.
“Nothing, Auntie, dear. I heard a queer noise in the gallery and it startled me. Bee says it was only the echo from the bang I gave my door. I’m all right,” Patsy sturdily insisted, rising from the seat and blowing a gay little kiss to her aunt.
“I heard you bang your door,” was the significant response. “When you come back from your walk you must take one of those capsules that Dr. Hilliard prescribed for my nerves.”
“All right,” Patsy dutifully agreed. “Good-bye, Auntie. We’re going now.”
“Good-bye. Remember to be back by one o’clock.”