“No, indeed. Why should I?” he asked. “There’s enough of ’em now. Too many, in fact. Besides, if they find out what’s the matter, they’ll be sure to let the rest of us know.”
It looked very much as if the young man was right, but the curious part of it was, after all, that not one of that crowd, nor all of them together, did more than rummage the Academy after hidden human beings.
They were all equally sure that there was no one up in the belfry, and so that part of the building was left to keep its own secrets and those of Mrs. Wood’s ghosts.
Meantime, George Brayton and Effie had the pleasantest kind of a walk and talk, and Mrs. Dryer was enabled to bottle-up an immense amount of wrath against her next meeting with her stepdaughter.
In fact, when that much-disturbed lady came out of the Academy, after the fruitless raid of the villagers, she was unable to so much as even smile in the bewildered faces of her neighbors, thereby sending them all away with a deeper sense than ever of the gloomy depth of the cloud which seemed to be settling over Ogleport and its Academy.
CHAPTER XXIV
MAJOR MONTAGUE HAS A VISITOR
On the morning after the visit of Mr. Ashbel Norton, old Judge Danvers was opening his mail. He had spent a good part of the previous evening with Dr. Manning, and the remainder with a pair of the best “detectives” in the city. There was evidently something heavy weighing upon his mind, for he tore open his letters, one by one, and seemed to glance over them almost mechanically.
That is, he did so until, as he looked listlessly into one of them, he gave a sudden start and almost sprang to his feet.