“I reckon you’re right. I rather like his looks, whatever his name may be. We’ll leave it this way: if we meet him around, we’ll probably find out all about him. If he should prove to be Robert, we can keep our own counsel and he will have no way of identifying us, so there you are. There may nothing more come of it, for it is quite likely that he will never pay another visit to the haunted house.” “I shall be really disappointed if he doesn’t. It would be such fun if he were to answer our message.” “I wouldn’t count on it.” “Well, I shall try to restrain my curiosity for a week, but no longer. A week from to-day I go again. What do you say?” “I say we don’t set any time, but just leave the whole thing to chance. We’ll go again when it’s convenient, whether it be to-morrow, next week, or the week after. It is more fun to have it chancy like that.” Ellen agreed that it would be so, and they went on to deliver their supplies to Miss Rindy. “We brought a box of strawberries, but there wasn’t any cream to-day. Mr. Nevins says it must have been put off on one of the other islands,” Ellen explained. “Dear me!” exclaimed Miss Rindy. “That’s just the way it goes. Yesterday they lost our mackerel out of the wagon and some one picked it up on the road, and to-day this happens. Well, we can have strawberry shortcake for supper, and as soon as I can get around to it I’ll go up to Portland and lay in a lot of supplies, things that can’t be had here. It is rather disconcerting, but I’ve been up against worse situations over in France.” “I think it’s rather fun not to know exactly what you are going to have, something like a game in which you don’t know just how you will come out.” “That’s one way to look at it,” returned Miss Rindy. “Suppose you turn to and hull these strawberries while Beulah is making the shortcake; then I can attend to the rest of the supper. Did you have a good walk?” “Fine,” Ellen answered, but she said no word of the haunted house. CHAPTER XVI THE BRIDGE But a week was not allowed to elapse before the two girls saw an opportunity of crossing the bridge again to make a second visit to the haunted house. Miss Rindy one evening declared her intention of spending the next day in Portland. She had now almost recovered from her accident, and with the aid of her stick could get about perfectly with scarce a sign of a limp. “Beulah will look after you,” she told the two girls. “She knows what to do, and if anything goes wrong, you, Ellen, can set it right. It won’t hurt you to take a little responsibility once in a while.” “It seems to me that I have proved that I can,” retorted Ellen. “Well, perhaps you have, in a measure, but that was at home; it is different here. One should be prepared to meet any emergency, no matter where.”