for
twenty-eight years and Aunt Trudy had unfailingly put this question
to some member of the family at every meeting for the last
twenty-seven, this particular query might be said to be more a
comment than a question.

"We'll go up to the house in Bernard Coyle's jitney," said Rosemary,
leading the way around to the side platform. "He will take your
trunk checks, Aunt Trudy, and the express man will deliver them."

Bernard Coyle ran two of the three Eastshore jitneys and personally
conducted the least ancient of his two cars. He welcomed the
prospect of four passengers with a glad smile and swung Aunt
Trudy's bags to a safe place under the seat at a nod from Rosemary.
While they climbed in, he departed with the trunk checks and
returned in a few minutes to report that the three trunks would be
in the front hall of the Willis home within an hour.

Then he took the wheel of his wheezy little car and without another
word drove frenziedly and rackingly through the quiet streets till
the Willis house was reached. Winnie, mindful of Rosemary's plea,
came out to the curb to meet them.

"Well, Winnie, I'm glad to see you again," was Miss Wright's
greeting. "You and I are to keep house and look after these flighty
young folks, I understand."

"Yes'm," nodded Winnie. "Your room's all ready, Miss Wright--the one
you always have, next to Mrs. Willis'. And Doctor Hugh said to tell
you he'd be home at quarter of six."

Aunt Trudy Wright was a rather short, dumpy woman and inclined to be
stout and short of breath. She had iron-gray hair, near-sighted dark
eyes and very pretty, very plump small hands. She exclaimed over her
room when she saw it, said that everything was lovely and insisted
on kissing the three girls again. Sarah promptly left at this point
and was discovered by her brother when he came home, lying flat on
the porch rug and absorbed in a book which dealt, in detail, with
the health and welfare of rabbits.

"Well you look comfortable," he said good-humoredly. "Aunt Trudy
come? Who went to meet her? Where are the other girls?"

"Uh-huh," grunted Sarah, interested at that moment in a description
of a balanced diet for her pets.

Dr. Hugh laughed and went on. The house seemed strangely quiet to
him, though he could hear Winnie humming in the kitchen and
appetizing odors promised a dinner on time. In the upstairs hall,
Rosemary tip-toed to meet him, her eyes dark with mystery.

"Hello, where is everyone?" aske