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and, somehow, it didn’t seem like a good time—then! When are you going again? And won’t you take me?”
    â€œI haven’t been there in two years,” he mused. “I ought to go again soon. The old lady may not live very long, she’s so feeble. Let’s see! Suppose we make it the week-end before election. I’ll write to her to-morrow that we’re all coming, you and Mother and I.”
    â€œOh, but, Father!” exclaimed Joyce.“Couldn’t we go sooner? That’s nearly a month off!”
    â€œBest I can do, Duckie dear! I simply can’t get away before. What’s your hurry, anyway? First you won’t be hired to go and see her, and then you want to rush off and do it at once! What a funny little daughter it is!” He kissed her laughingly, as she bade him good night.
    But Joyce slept little that night. She was wild for morning to come so that she could tell Cynthia, and wilder with impatience to think of the long dragging month ahead before the visit to Great-aunt Lucia, and the solution of the mystery.

CHAPTER IX
THE MEMORIES OF GREAT-AUNT LUCIA
    C YNTHIA sat at her desk in high school, alternately staring out of the window, gazing intently across the room at Joyce, and scowling at the blackboard where the cryptic symbols

    were being laboriously expounded by the professor of mathematics. Of this exposition, it is safe to say, Cynthia comprehended not a word for the following simple reason. Early that morning Joyce had returned from the visit to her great-aunt Lucia and had entered the class-room late. Cynthia had not yet had a moment in which to speak with her alone. It was now the last period of the day, and her impatience had completely conquered her usual absorbed attention to her studies.
    The professor droned on. The class feverishly copied more cryptic symbols in its notebooks. But at last the closing-bell rang, and, after what seemed interminable and totally unnecessary delays, Cynthia found herself out of doors, arm-in-arm with Joyce. Then all she could find to say was:
    â€œNow— tell me! ”But Joyce was very serious, and very mysterious too.
    â€œNot here,” she answered. “I couldn’t! Wait!”
    â€œWell, where and when, then?” cried Cynthia.
    â€œHome,” said Joyce. Then, after a moment,—“No, I’ll tell you in the Boarded-up House! That’s the most appropriate place. We’ll go there straight after we get home.” So Cynthia was obliged to repress her impatience a little longer. But at length they had crept through the cellar window, lighted their candles, and were proceeding upstairs.
    â€œCome into the library,” said Joyce. “I want to stand right where I can look at the Lovely Lady when I tell you this. It’s all so strange—so different from what we thought! So they went through the drawing-room, entered the library, and placed their candlesticks on the mantel where the light would best illuminate the portrait of the Lovely Lady. Then Joyce began.
    â€œGreat-aunt Lucia is very old and very feeble. She seemed so glad to see us all,—especially me. She talked to me a great deal, but I did not have a chance to mention this place to her at all till the last evening we were there. Mother and Father had gone out to call on some friends, but it was raining and I had a sore throat, so they decided not to take me. I was so glad, because then I could stay home and talk to Great-aunt Lucia, and it was the first time I’d been with her long alone.
    â€œShe had been telling me a lot about when she was a little girl, and asking me about myself. And I had told her about you and how we’d been together so many years, and what we did when we weren’t in school. And finally I mentioned, just casually, that we often played in the grounds of this old house next door and described the place a little to her. Well, that started her, as I was sure it would! She