“She was,” interrupted Ruth, “but I heard mother say her brother’s business affairs are being mysteriously adjusted. Maybe that’s why she has become rejuvenated.”
“Yes, that’s exactly it,” snapped Nancy. “And how the great, grand trick worked is one of the stories we have missed. I never saw such a place as Long Leigh for floating stories that no one can explain. Miss Townsend talked all around her good luck, but never touched it. Of course, I couldn’t be so rude—”
“Of course you couldn’t,” mocked Isabel.
“Just the same,” retorted Nancy, “I did ask right out straight, without hint or apology, where—Mr. Sanders lived.”
“And you got snubbed for your pains,” flung in Ruth.
“Nothing of the kind, I became informed for my pains,” asserted Nancy.
“Land sakes tell us!” pleaded Isabel. “First thing you know I’ll hear our car, and miss the—mystery.”
“Well,” began Nancy, deliberately and provokingly, “I asked her: 'Where does Mr. Sanders live?’ And just as I was gulping hard to control my emoting emotions, Miss Townsend shook her necklace like a dinner bell, and said softly—”
Nancy paused. The girls were threatening to throw her over the bench into the flower bed but she seemed about ready to divulge the secret, so presently they desisted.
“Well,” she said, “Miss Townsend answered, 'Mr. Sanders lives right here in this hotel. He moved in yesterday and the poor man needed the change after all he’s been through.’ Now girls,” pouted Nancy, “did you ever see anything as mean as that? Just when I’m free to dig up the wild and woolly mystery, our hero goes and rents a room in the Waterfall House,” and she affected a pose intended to excite pity, but in reality causing mirth.