“Maud!” gasped Molly, her eyes round with astonishment. “You mean you knew such an exciting thing, and never told any one.”
Maud nodded.
“I wanted to have a secret,” she said, “and I was afraid Dulcie or Daisy would tell Grandma. It was the last time I had a cold, and Grandma wouldn’t let me go out. I was up here playing all by myself. I was looking for my littlest china doll. I couldn’t find her, and I thought perhaps I’d left her in the trunk-room the day we played Libby Prison in there, so I went to look. I did find her behind one of the biggest trunks, and then I saw the door. I thought it was locked, of course, but I shook the handle just for fun, and all of a sudden it came open, and I looked right in next door.”
“What did you see?” demanded Molly, in a tone of breathless interest.
“I didn’t see very much,” confessed Maud, reluctantly. “It was just a big closet, and there were brooms and dust-pans in it, but it really was next door. First I was going to tell, but then I was afraid if Grandma knew she’d have the door locked up right away, and then we could never go to see the singing lady.”
“I’m sure Grandma would have it locked right up,” said Molly, “and perhaps the lady who keeps the boarding-house would, too, but it’s very interesting to know it isn’t locked now. Why, it must have been unlocked all the time since Uncle George died, and nobody ever found it out before. I don’t believe the people next door know it any more than we did.”
“Of course they don’t,” said Maud, “that’s what makes it so interesting. Now you see you can go to see the singing lady just as easy as anything, and ask her to sing ‘Only an Armor-Bearer.’”
“Oh, Maud, I couldn’t,” protested Molly; “it would be such a very queer thing to do. The lady might not like it a bit, and Grandma would make such a fuss. She never lets us talk to people she doesn’t know.”
“You promised you wouldn’t tell Grandma, and I know the singing lady wouldn’t be angry. You’ve got to do it, Molly, or else maybe I’ll die and go to heaven.”
Molly hesitated. It would certainly be a thrilling experience to go uninvited, and without even ringing the door-bell, into the house next door, that mysterious boarding-house, upon whose occupants Grandma and Aunt Kate looked down from their height of social superiority. Molly loved adventure, and yet—what would Grandma say? Would even Dulcie and Daisy altogether approve? Maud noticed the hesitation in her sister’s manner, and was quick to take advantage of it.