Grace and Cleo were at her heels, determined to show their courage, but within the room everything was still, too still to be pleasant.
"Reda put things in order before she left," Grace remarked. "What a pretty, low, rumbly place this is!"
"How can you be sure Reda is gone?" Cleo asked, staring at the glass door through which the queer lights had warned them of the intruders' danger the night before.
"Here's her everyday fichu," Mary replied. "She never goes out without one—even wears it around the house, so she has donned her best. Yes, she has gone to New York. Here's her yellow handkerchief; she has dressed all up in her nicest things. Let's see if she has taken her bag."
Opening a small door off the hall, opposite the sinister glass portal, Mary entered a sleeping room profusely trimmed up with the brightest of chintz draperies and colorful hangings.
"Yes, her bag is also gone. Well, girls," and Mary turned to them with a frank smile, "I did like Reda, of course, but sometimes she has frightened me so, and then Janos was so awfully rough with dear Grandie."
"But whatever will you do without a housekeeper?" asked Cleo.
"I don't know really"—and she blinked threateningly—"but at any rate
I am glad to be free!"
A sense of security had now come to the girls, and they were flitting around, looking at this thing and that, quite as if they had just stepped into some attractive shop to inspect its wares. But they did not go near the leaded glass door!
"Now, girls," Mary called quite soberly, emerging from Reda's room, "I am going to give you a real treat. Just watch."