may move into it yourself some day if you like, but I would rather not
have a stranger occupy it. I----"

"What on earth is queer about that room?" Betty interrupted. "I have
not time to listen now, but you _must_ tell me. You talk as though it
were a kind of Bluebeard's Chamber of Horrors. Yet I don't suppose you
would put me in it if I were likely to have my head cut off in
consequence. Good-bye, dear." And Betty fled out into the hall,
realizing that it must be almost school time.

The door of Esther's old room happened by accident to be standing open,
and still holding on to her tray, Betty paused before it for a few
moments. She was not thinking of a possible mystery or secret in
connection with the room, only wondering if Esther and Polly were to be
at home for the Christmas holidays. They both wanted to come, she
thought. But Esther was not sure of being able to afford it and Polly
was uncertain of whether she wished to stay in her stepfather's house
at a time when her stepbrother, Frank Wharton, whom she disliked so
much, should also be at home for his holidays. The girl's face was a
little wistful. She so longed to see both her friends. Without them
and without Dick, this first Christmas under such changed conditions at
home might be rather trying.

"Oh!" Betty exclaimed a trifle indignantly, with her arm shaking so
that the dishes in her hands rattled dangerously. "What in the world
are you doing in the house at this hour, Anthony Graham? You
frightened me nearly to death, turning up at my elbow in such an
unexpected fashion. I thought you had been gone hours!"

Anthony put down his coal scuttle and took hold of Betty's tray. "I
have been away, but I came back for a moment because your mother wished
me to do something for her as soon as I had the spare time." His tone
was so surly that Betty smiled. Anthony had been brought up with such
a different class of people that he was unable to understand sarcasm or
pretense of any kind. Whatever one said he accepted in exactly the
words in which it was spoken. And Betty and her friends had always
been accustomed to joking with one another, to saying one thing, often
meaning another. Anthony should have had the sense to realize that she
was not really cross, that her indignation was partly assumed.
Therefore she did not intend taking the trouble to set him right in the
present instance.

"I'll carry the dishes down myself. I have plenty of ti