er, and he suddenly took awful sick and
had to be taken to the hospital up at Branchville. She stayed on at the
hotel so's to be near him (she runs up there every day in her car), and
then the hotel had to close down for the season. The manager come to me
and asked me if I could take her in, 'cause he was kind of sorry for her,
her grandfather bein' so ill, an' she couldn't seem to find no other
place. So I did, but she worries me a lot, somehow. I don't like to see a
young girl like that with no one to look after her, and she running
around loose in that auto all the time. Why, she even took it out one
rainy night last week at ten o'clock. Said she was worried about her
grandfather, but I didn't approve of her running all the way up there to
Branchville in the rain."

Here Phyllis glanced significantly at Leslie and interjected a question.
"Did she and her grandfather have one of the bungalows on the beach this
summer, do you know, Aunt Sally?"

"Why, not that I know of. She said she'd been visiting some friends
somewhere in Maine, and then come on here to join her grandfather just a
few days before he was taken sick. I don't think it likely she ever
stayed in one of the bungalows. She didn't seem to know anything about
this region at first. And I'd likely have heard of it if she had. But,
laws! I got biscuits in the oven and I'm clean forgetting them!" And with
a whisk of skirts, Aunt Sally vanished for a moment into the kitchen.

"What did I tell you!" whispered Leslie. "Went out in the rain one night
last week about ten o'clock! I warrant she didn't go to the hospital, or,
if she did, it was after she'd visited Curlew's Nest!"

But Aunt Sally was back almost immediately, bearing some hot biscuits and
jam which she hospitably invited her guests to try. And while they were
partaking of this refreshment she sighed:

"My, how I have been gossiping about that poor girl! I sort of feel
conscience-stricken, for I could like her real well if she'd only let me.
She's a sort of lovable-looking child! I wish she knew you two girls. I
believe it would do her a lot of good to be around with you. There she is
now!"--she cried, as a car flashed past the window and up the driveway
toward the barn. "Just wait till she comes in and I'll introduce you--"

"No, no!" exclaimed Phyllis, hastily springing up. "Better not, Aunt
Sally. If she doesn't care for you, I'm sure she wouldn't for us.
Besides, we must go right away. Remember,