“Thank you,” replied the girl simply, “but perhaps we shall not meet again. You will be going away in a little while.”
“You must come and sing for us at Major Ten Eyck’s,” said Ruth, “and then we shall see if we cannot meet again.”
They were walking in single file, now, along the stream. Mollie was gathering ferns which grew in profusion on the bank. Barbara, who was behind the others, had stopped to look at a bird’s nest that had fallen to the ground and shattered the little blue eggs it had held.
As she knelt on the ground, something impelled her to look over her shoulder. At first Bab saw only the green depths of the forest, but in a moment her eyes had found what had attracted them. Stifling a cry she rose to her feet. What she had seen was gone in an instant, so quickly that she wondered if she had not been dreaming. Peering at her through the leaves of parted branches she had seen a face, a very strange, old face, as white as death. It was the face of an old person, she felt instinctively, but the eyes had something childlike in their expression of wonder and surprise.
When it was gone, Barbara felt almost as if she had seen a ghost. She leaned over and dipped her hands into the stream to quiet her throbbing veins.
“Truly this wood is full of mysteries,” she thought to herself as she turned to follow the others. But she decided not to say anything about it. They had had enough frights lately, and she was determined not to add another to the list.
By this time the girls had reached a lovely little pool set like a mirror in a mossy frame. On one side the bank had flattened out and was carpeted with luxuriant, close-cropped grass, almost as smooth as the lawn of a city park. The trees had crowded themselves to the very edge of the greensward. They closed up on the strip of lawn like a wall and stretched their branches over it, as if to shield it from the sun.
“Did you ever see anything so sweet in all your life?” cried Ruth, as she flung herself on the turf.
“Never!” agreed the others with enthusiasm, following her example.
“This pool is supposed to be haunted,” said Zerlina, and Bab started, remembering the face she had just seen.