“There is no need to be so frightened, Dorothy,” said Mrs. White. “We will just go about and see that things are locked up. I do wish the boys were in, though, and perhaps you had better call up the stable, Tavia, and ask John to come down to the house.”
The ’phone to the stable was just at the door of the sitting room, so Tavia did not have to venture far to call the man. But no answer came to the summons. John was not in the stable.
“Well, the boys will be back shortly,” Mrs. White said confidently, “and there is no need for alarm. We will see that the doors are fastened. You did get a start, Dorothy, but you know, my dear, in the country people cross lawns and take short cuts without really meaning to trespass.”
“Oh, I’m all right now,” replied Dorothy, “but it was—sudden. I’ll see that the shades are drawn at dark after this,” and she laughed lightly as she followed her aunt and Tavia through the hall to fasten the front door.
It was strange they should be so alarmed, but they were, and the measured tread that marked the small procession on its way to the front door showed plainly that each member of the trio wanted the door locked, but was not personally anxious to turn the key.
“There,” sighed Mrs. White, when finally her jeweled finger was withdrawn from the heavy panel. “I have often dreamed of doing that—and having some one grab me as I turned the key, but I escaped, luckily, this time. Now we may go back to our school plans. Suppose we sit in the library, just to get away from the side porch.”
To this welcome suggestion the girls promptly agreed, and if the intruder who had so disturbed them a few minutes before, chose to follow them up, and peer through the library windows, he would have had to cross directly under the electric light that illumined the entrance to the villa at the Cedars.
But, somehow, Dorothy could not forget the face that she had caught sight of, and she felt instinctively that the prowler was not a neighbor “taking a short cut,” for he need not have stepped on the porch in that case.
So when school matters were settled, and the boys had returned from their ride in the Fire Bird to hear the account of the little adventure, and to take extra precautions in locking up the big house, Dorothy whispered to Ned and Nat her suspicion—that the man who peeked in at the windows might be one of the bad gypsies, and that he might know something about the stolen pigeons.
“We ought to set a trap for the rascal,” Ned whispered in answer to his cousin’s suspicions, “he may be coming back for the rest of the birds. I wish I had told John to keep his ears open while his eyes were shut, but it’s too late to do that now,” and then, with every assurance of safety, and the promise to be up at the slightest alarm, Ned and Nat said good-night to their cousin, and Dorothy’s fears were soon forgotten in the sleep that comes to healthy girls after the pleasant exercise of a lingering summer’s day.