Everyone was puzzled. It was very unusual to give hot-house flowers in May. Then a side door was heard to creak on its hinges and the pretty stranger, Rose Dixon, was just seen passing out.
"I wonder why she left?" Madaline asked Grace.
"Oh, I don't know, but I would like to leave myself," unexpectedly retorted Grace.
"Sick?" persisted Madaline.
"No—just tired," and no one knew better than Grace what a conscience prodder such a meeting as this proved to be—that is "no one" except, perhaps, Rose Dixon.
CHAPTER X
TELLING SECRETS
Determined to wait no longer than the very next afternoon, Grace asked both Cleo and Madaline over to her front porch directly after school, assuring their acceptance to her invitation by the lure of "a big secret to tell them." Needless to say, they came, and there, in the shadow of the yellow and white honeysuckle blossoms, with busy bees buzzing in and out of the honey-filled cups, Grace disclosed the story of her second trip to River Bend Woods.
The girls were fascinated. To think the tied-up man had written a letter!
"Yes, but," argued Grace. "I am a little timid ever since. See, he says he hopes he can lasso me some day with my own rope! Just suppose he does!"