"No, indeed," Grace enthusiastically seconded this opinion. "What we are doing with you is a positive joy."
"I don't know what would have become of us in Bellaire if we hadn't met you," Cleo chimed in, serious beyond contention. "Of course, we met a few girls, but we are so accustomed to adventures and activities. I guess we require more things to happen than do most girls. Now, Mary, we will go with you up to the studio, if I can find a boy to take a message to Jennie. I don't want to phone, as she might not understand."
The small boy, not difficult to find around soda fountains on summer afternoons, was glad to accept the offer of a nickel to take a note to Cragsnook, and thereupon the girls set out for Second Mountain.
Mary led the way, romping over vacant lots, climbing fences and otherwise taking short cuts to the hillside.
"We accidentally found your mountain cave one day in a shower," Cleo told her, as they neared that cedar covered mountain table. "We were up here in that dreadful storm the other day."
"Oh, were you? Reda and I had been to the village for Grandie's medicine, and we were also caught in it," said Mary.
No reference was made to the overheard conversation. Not that Cleo wanted to be secretive, but because she felt it might be embarrassing to refer to it.
In spite of the fortifying sunshine, and the fact that Mary had talked of neighbors not far from the studio, the girls each felt a certain apprehension as they neared the scene of their recent exciting adventure. Madaline was noticeably quiet, and not even a beautiful gray squirrel, that hopped directly in their path, with a saucy flirt of its bushy tail, evoked so much as a joyous shout from her. Still she wanted to go to the studio, and now they were in full sight of the low terra cottage lodge.
"Oh, it will seem so strange without Grandie," Mary commented, "but I am so happy that his memory is coming back. If only he could remember—" She checked herself, as she always did, when accidentally she might mention the urgent necessity for Professor Benson "remembering."
In a very business-like way, quite astonishing to her companions, Mary slipped her finger in a tiny pocket, made in her black velvet belt, produced from it a latch key, and with this opened the big, heavy door.