"That is really a brilliant observation," announced the Guardian who had been listening with quiet interest to the spirited conversation. "Continued thought along such lines ought to result in a Keda National Honor for you, Harriet."
"I'll agree to all that if Harriet will take back what she said about my being an old maid," said Hazel with mock dignity.
"I didn't call you an old maid, my dear," denied the impromptu poet pertly. "I merely said, or meant to say, that the idea you expressed might better be expected from an old maid, although I doubt if many old maids could have expressed it as well as you did."
"Girls, Girls, are you going to turn our vacation into a two-weeks repartee bee?" Marion broke in with affected desperation. "If you do, you will force your hostess to go way back and sit down, and that wouldn't be polite, you know. By the way, if you'll excuse me I'll do that very thing now for another reason. I've got two letters in my hand bag that I forgot all about. I'm going to read them right now. You girls are making too much chatter. I can't read in your midst."
So saying, Marion retired to a chair just far enough away to lend semblance of reality to her "go way back and sit down" suggestion, and settled back comfortably to read the two missives that arrived with the last evening's mail at the Institute.
"Settled back comfortably"—yes, but only for a short time. Marion never before in her life received two such letters. Both were anonymous. The first one that she opened aroused enough curiosity to "unsettle" her. She thought she knew whom it was from—those ingenious Boy Scouts of Spring Lake—perhaps it was written by cousin Clifford himself. It was just like him. He was a natural leader among boys, and often up to mischief of some sort. Marion was sure he was one of the prime movers of the Scout invasion of Hiawatha Institute.
But the next letter was the real thriller, or rather cold chiller. She knew very well what it meant. From the point of view of the writer it meant "business," a threat well calculated to work terror in her own heart and the heart of every other member of Flamingo Fire. It was a threat couched in direful words, warning her and her friends not to go to Hollyhill on their charity mission, as announced, and predicting serious injury if not death to some of them. It was signed with a skull and cross-bones.