"I love Aunt Janice," Alice joined in, "don't you?"
"She's a perfectly darling old lady," Beth replied, a sentiment that expressed the feelings of all the Merediths.
A sudden turn in their wanderings, revealed the mysterious west wing and tower room, that was uppermost, just then, in their minds.
With its clinging ivy that covered the old walls, it looked more mysterious than they dreamed it would. In another moment, however, they remembered what Aunt Janice had said, and hurried on by.
"I don't think we ought to look at it even at a distance," Nora remarked, "because I'm sure that room holds the secret that shadows the old place; for some reason Aunt Janice isn't ready to disclose it."
"And I believe that Dad would have told us all about the castle if it hadn't been for the mystery." Janey glanced back over her shoulder as she spoke, then gave a suppressed scream.
"There's someone inside the tower room," she gasped—"I saw a handkerchief waving behind the ivy covered window!"
"Hush!" Nora broke in hurriedly, "you imagined that, Janey—probably a white pigeon has flown in and can't find its way out again."
"Imagined indeed!" Janey's voice was shaking with excitement, "I tell you that someone is there at this moment, peering through those overhanging vines."
Alice began to cry softly, while Nora had to turn her attention toward pacifying the little girl.