ran all the way home, because it was rather late, and they did not
want the servants to fetch them from the parish schoolroom, where they
had not spent the evening. It would have been very difficult to explain
exactly where and how they _had_ spent it, and the fact that they had
promised not to say anything about it would have added considerably to
the difficulty.

When they had been let in, and had taken off their hats and jackets and
got their breaths, they looked at each other.

'Well?' said Phyllis.

'Yes,' said Mabel; 'what an inciting adventure! What a dear he is! I do
hope we shall see his little girl to-morrow.'

'Yes,' said Guy slowly, 'but I don't think we shall.'

'Why ever not?'

'Because I don't believe he's got any little girl. We went into all the
rooms, and the hall and landing. There wasn't any other room for the
little girl to be in.'

'Perhaps it was really her under the sheet, trying to be ghosts,' said
Phyllis.

'It was too high up,' said Mabel.

'She might have been standing on a stool,' said Phyllis.

'Well,' said Guy, with a satisfied look; 'it's a very thrilling
mystery.'

It was. And it gave them something to think of for the next few days.
For that evening when they went to fetch the Christmas-tree, they found
the door of Sir Christopher's castle tight shut, and their
Christmas-tree was standing alone on the doorstep in the dark.

After vainly knocking several times, they put the tree into the
wheelbarrow and got it home, only upsetting it three times by the way.

When they got it into the light of their schoolroom they saw that there
was a piece of paper on it--a note.

'My dears,' it said, 'here is your beautiful tree. Thank you very much.
If you knew how much pleasure it had given me you would be glad. Why not
give the tree to some poor child? Good-bye. God bless you!'

There were some letters tangled together at the bottom of the page.

'His initials, I suppose,' said Guy. But nobody could read them.

'Anyway, it means he doesn't want to see us any more,' said Phyllis.
'Oh, I do wish we knew something more about him.'

But they took his advice, and the tree went to the gardener's little
boy, who was ill. It made him almost forget his illness for days and
days.

When father came home they asked him who lived in the Grotto. He told
them.

'He has lived there for years,' he said. 'I have heard that when he came
into his property he found that his property was almost