board over the door. "There it is,--_'Curlew's
Nest.'_ There's something about the name that fascinates me. Don't you
feel so too, Aunt Marcia? I can imagine all sorts of curious and
wonderful things about a closed-up house called 'Curlew's Nest'! It just
fairly bristles with possibilities!"

"What a romantic child you are, Leslie!" smiled her aunt. "When you are
as old as I am, you'll find you won't be thinking of interesting
possibilities in a perfectly ordinary shut-up summer bungalow. It's a
pretty enough name, of course, but I must confess it doesn't suggest a
single thing to me except that I'm cold and want to get back to the fire.
Come along, dearie!"

Leslie sighed and turned back, without another word, to lead her aunt to
their own abode. One phase of their stay she had been very, very careful
to conceal from Miss Marcia. She loved this aunt devotedly, all the more
perhaps because she was ill and weak and nervous and very dependent on
her niece's care; but down in the depths of her soul, Leslie had to
confess to herself that she was lonely, horribly lonely for the
companionship of her parents and sisters and school chums. The loneliness
did not always bother her, but it came over her at times like an
overwhelming wave, usually when Miss Marcia failed to respond to some
whim or project or bubbling enthusiasm. Between them gaped the abyss of
forty years difference in age, and more than a score of times Leslie had
yearned for some one of her own years to share the joy she felt in her
unusual surroundings.

As they stepped on their own veranda, Leslie glanced out to sea with a
start of surprise. "Why, look how it's clouding up!" she exclaimed. "It
was as clear as a bell a few minutes ago, and now the blue sky is
disappearing rapidly."

"I knew to-day was a weather-breeder," averred Miss Marcia. "I felt in my
bones that a storm was coming. We'll probably get it to-night. I do hope
the roof won't leak. We haven't had a real bad storm since we came, and I
dread the experience."

At eight o'clock that evening it became apparent that they were in for a
wild night. The wind had whipped around to the northeast and was blowing
a gale. There was a persistent crash of breakers on the beach. To open a
door or window was to admit a small cyclone of wind and sand and rain.
Miss Marcia sat for a while over the open fire, bemoaning the fact that
the roof _did_ leak in spots, though fortunately not over the beds. She
was dep