Dating (Social customs) -- Juvenile fiction; Friendship -- Juvenile fiction; Young women -- Social life and customs -- Juvenile fiction
“Please do. She’d think it the best kind of fun,” Jonas insisted. It was
as though Miss Susanna were a child for whom Jonas delighted to provide
entertainment. “She always says she likes adventure. She feels as though
she’d had a good many adventures since she’s known you and the young
ladies here.”
“We have had some real ones,” Marjorie assured the old man. “All right,
Jonas. We hereby appoint you as guide of this secret expedition. Lead
on. We’ll do our best to give Miss Susanna a wee little adventure. Not
so little, either. A secret panel; that sounds thrilling.”
“I’ll put it in the first play I write for Page and Dean this fall,”
Kathie promised.
Led by Jonas the secret expedition tiptoed silently down the broad hall
until they came to a lift. It was situated between the library and
dining room and opened onto the second floor within a few feet of the
study. It was seldom used by the energetic mistress of the Arms. Jonas
opened its door without a sound and the five girls crowded into it,
leaving him hardly enough space in which to operate it. At the second
floor the man stopped the cage with a faint click and the adventurers
stepped noiselessly, one after another, into the hall.
Jonas came last. He motioned the girls to follow him. Down the hall he
walked, past the study and on to a small, railed-in balcony. The balcony
adjoined the back wall of the study and formed a side of a little open
square over the library after the fashion of a patio. Exactly in the
middle of the balcony he stopped. The interested watchers saw him run a
practiced hand up and down the severely beautiful wainscoting.
Soundlessly, a smooth section of the wainscoting, between two raised
edges, and fairly wide apart, slid to the left and disappeared from
view. Its vanishment left an open space about three feet square.
Mutely peering into the study they saw Miss Susanna seated in Brooke
Hamilton’s chair. At the left of her, on the massive table lay a goodly
pile of papers, yellowish and time stained. In front of her reposed
another pile of official-looking papers and opened letters. She was too
deeply immersed in a study of them to be aware of anything outside of
them.
Jonas touched Marjorie’s arm. He made a motion toward the aperture. She
nodded in merry understanding. Stealthily she lifted first one foot,
then the other, over the lower up-standing part of the wainscoting.
Holding her breath she reached Miss Susanna’s chair in two noiseless
steps. Two soft hands found the old lady’s eyes and closed over them.
“Who-o-o-o!” Miss Susanna cried out like a small tree owl. Like a flash
her own sturdy hands readied up and caught Marjorie by the arm. “I know
this game! I can guess who it is!” she cried out like a jubilant child.
“Guess, then,” growled Marjorie in as gruff a voice as she could muster.
“Marvelous Manager,” came with delighted certainty. This particular
nickname for Marjorie seemed always most to amuse the old lady.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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