"Let's wait," said Betty, quickening her pace, "and let Will tell the story!"
CHAPTER XXV
THE MYSTERY EXPLAINED
After dinner in the living-room of the Hostess House, a snapping, dancing, crackling fire in the grate, and the girls gathered in an expectant semicircle about it.
They were nervous, too, for every once in a while one of them would get up, look out the window, throw an extra log upon the fire and sit down again with a "why-don't-they-come?" look of impatience upon her face.
A ring at the door bell!
"I'll answer it," cried Betty, jumping up and nearly overturning a chair in her eagerness. When she returned a couple of minutes later, her face held a look of unutterable disgust.
"Only one of the guests," she said, as the girls looked up eagerly.
"I was sure that must be the boys."
"They're terribly late," grumbled Mollie, kicking an overturned edge of the rug into place, as if even that small vent to her feelings was a relief. "They'll be all talked out before they get here."
Another ring at the door bell!