This calamitous consideration acted as a spur to the romping girls, who were once more discovering short-cuts home from Second Mountain, and joining hands, they raced pell-mell through the daisy field, down to the path that edged the brook.
"I think it is too mean," grumbled Madaline. "We hadn't entirely searched all the places, nooks and boxes and things. We may have left a lot of valuables behind us for the robbers to pack in their boxes."
Everyone laughed at Madaline's literal and explicit surmise. It was characteristic of Madaline that she should stamp a mere guess with a most definite label, but the excitement of the flight with the treasures was too absorbing to admit of this trifle being noticed.
"I hope Aunt Audrey is in," said Cleo. "We must, of course, bring these things to her at once. She will know best what to do with them."
"And we better not mention them to anyone," cautioned Grace, "else we might again be visited with night prowlers."
That the strange child should fall back into a condition such as the scouts first found her in was additional cause for alarm. She scarcely spoke in answer to the questions piled upon her. Who might have been in the studio? What would they ever intend to do with so tiny a little baby monkey? What had they expected to put in all those boxes? Such questions came thicker than the stones they skipped over, but in reply the girls received nothing but skeleton answers from Mary, and these were built of simple, meager words.
"But the orchids? What can we do about them?" Grace insisted. This roused Mary. She was seen to shudder, and heard to sigh before replying:
"Girls, please forgive me for being so rude. But so much is rushing all about me, I can hardly think. I shall never let you go with me to the studio again——"
"Then you shan't go either!" promptly interrupted Cleo. "Your danger would be as great as ours, and we will never leave you until every thread of this mystery is untangled."
"Indeed, we will not," echoed Grace, while Madaline too offered her pledge of loyalty to their new member.