smissed. I can't tell. But one thing I can guess
pretty plainly--they went right after the dinner-party and didn't stay
over another night. 'Cause why? Most of their beds are made, and they
left everything in a muss down-stairs. But come along. This isn't
particularly interesting. I want to get to the other end of the hall.
Something different's over there!" They turned and retraced their steps,
emerging from the servants' quarters and passing again the rooms they
had already examined.

On the other side of the main hall they entered an apartment that was
not a bedroom, but appeared to have been used as a sitting-room and for
sewing. An old-fashioned sewing-table stood near one window. Two chairs
and another table were heaped with material and with garments in various
stages of completion. An open work-box held dust-covered spools. But
still there was nothing special in the room to challenge interest, and
Joyce pulled her companion across the hall toward another partially open
door.

They had scarcely been in it long enough to illuminate it with the pale
flames of their candles, before they realized that they were very near
the heart of the mystery. It was another bedroom, the largest so far,
and its aspect was very different from that of the others. The high
four-poster was tossed and tumbled, not, however, as if by a night's
sleep, but more as if some one had lain upon it just as it was, twisting
and turning restlessly. Two trunks stood on the floor, open and
partially packed. One seemed to contain household linen, once fine and
dainty and white, now yellowed and covered with the dust of years. The
other brimmed with clothing, a woman's, all frills and laces and silks;
and a great hoop-skirt, collapsed, lay on the floor alongside. Neither
of the girls could, for the moment, guess what it was, this queer
arrangement of wires and tape. But Joyce went over and picked it up,
when it fell into shape as she held it at arm's-length. Then they knew.

"I have an idea!" cried Joyce. "This hoop-skirt, or crinoline, I think
they used to call it, gave it to me. Cynthia, we must be in the room
belonging to the lovely lady whose picture hangs in the library."

"How do you know?" queried Cynthia.

"I don't _know_, I just suspect it. But perhaps we will find something
that proves it later." She held the candle over one of the trunks and
peered in. "Dresses, hats, waists," she enumerated. "Oh, how queer and
old-fashioned they all