r mounting the steps slowly, draw a key from her
pocket, deliberately open the door, and enter the house, closing the
door after her. Jeremiah drove slowly round to the back of the house. In
a few moments the shutters of the lower rooms were flung back. Miss
Wealthy stood at the window for a few minutes, gazing out thoughtfully;
then she disappeared.

Rose was beginning to feel very guilty, as if she had seen what she
ought not to see. A sense of sadness, of mystery, weighed heavily on her
sensitive spirit. Very quietly she stole back to her tree-trunk, and was
presently joined by Hildegarde, flushed and radiant, with the butterfly
safe in her plant-box, a quick and merciful pinch having converted him
into a "specimen" before he fairly knew that he was caught. Rose told
her tale, and Hildegarde wondered, and in her turn went to look at the
mysterious house.

"How _very_ strange!" she said, returning. "I hardly know why it is so
strange, for of course there might be all kinds of things to account for
it. It may be the house of some one who has gone away and asked Cousin
Wealthy to come and look at it occasionally. The people _may_ be in it,
and like to have the blinds all shut. And yet--yet, I don't believe it
is so. I feel strange!"

"Come away!" said Rose, rising. "Come home; it is a secret, and not our
secret."

And home they went, very silent, and forgetting to look for maiden-hair,
which they had come specially to seek.

But girls are girls; and Hildegarde and Rose could not keep their
thoughts from dwelling on the house in the wood. After some
consultation, they decided that there would be no harm in asking Martha
about it. If she put them off, or seemed unwilling to speak, then they
would try to forget what they had seen, and keep away from that part of
the woods; if not--

So it happened that the next day, while Miss Wealthy was taking her
after-dinner nap, the two girls presented themselves at the door of
Martha's little sewing-room, where she sat with her sleeves rolled up,
hemming pillow-cases. It was a sunny little room, with a pleasant smell
of pennyroyal about it. There was a little mahogany table that might
have done duty as a looking-glass, and indeed did reflect the wonderful
bouquet of wax flowers that adorned it; a hair-cloth rocking-chair, and
a comfortable wooden one with a delightful creak, without which Martha
would not have felt at home. On the walls were some bright prints, and a
framed t