The other girls laughed.
“Not high-tempered, Elinor,” said Nancy, “but you have a sort of royal manner when you are displeased that I imagine a queen might have when one of her subjects is disobedient.”
“What’s that?” interrupted Mary. “I thought I heard some one call.”
The girls paused and listened. They were standing in a broad, flat meadow which seemed to stretch out indefinitely in one direction like an enormous pale-green billiard table; but in the other direction, bordered by alder bushes, lay Boulder Lane; so called because of an immense gray boulder, which in some prehistoric upheaval had been tossed here, and which resembled now an old gray sentinel standing on perpetual guard.
“Why, there’s the automobile,” exclaimed Nancy, after some minutes, following an occasional flash of red through the bushes, as the flying motor car sped on up the lane.
“I wonder what she is doing up Boulder Lane? Exploring by herself, I suppose. It must be lonely,” observed Mary.
A fresh salt breeze had sprung up from the ocean, bringing with it the chill of the oncoming night. The three girls hastened their footsteps. If they were late, the boys might not wait for them.
“Boys are so unreliable,” Mary had remarked.
“Not Ben Austen,” said Elinor. “Father says he is as trustworthy as the Bank of England. But he’s slow. He never likes to stop one thing until he finishes it, no matter what’s waiting. He and Charlie are building a boat somewhere down the beach and they spend all their afternoons at it, but they are sure to be there if they promised.”
By this time the girls had reached the hedge. It was certainly a lonesome place. The old house which had been unoccupied for many years because its last occupant had committed suicide by hanging himself from a beam, appeared in the gathering dusk like a solitary gray ghost; the front windows resembled two large sad eyes gazing into space and the walls, streaked with the tempests of many seasons, had the appearance of a worn, tear-stained face.