There was only time for one, because now Uncle Jake was calling them and they were eager to go. It took a while to get started since Foster and Davey had chosen this moment to disappear, and no one thought of looking in the cellar. Finally the repeated shouting of their own names reached the boys' attention and brought them clattering up the wooden stairs. Next Uncle Jake couldn't find the car keys, and _those_ had to be hunted for. In the end they turned up, for a reason no one could fathom, on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet. Then the telephone rang and it was a lady who wanted to talk (and talk and talk) to Aunt Hilda. But at last, at last, they were on their way, all eight of them, because of course Davey went, too. They drove as far as Gone-Away, where they stopped for a moment to chat with Mrs. Cheever and Mr. Payton; then they went the rest of the way on foot, for the road leading to Mrs. Brace-Gideon's old driveway had long been taken over by the woods. The day, no better than the day before, was gray and chill, and as they passed between the large stone gateposts of the drive, it was suddenly very quiet. There was no wind, and the trees, draped in great snarled capes of honeysuckle, seemed to have muffled out the noises of the world. Silence had fallen on the party, as well. It was too much for Foster. He suddenly felt called upon to give his ear-splitting rendition of an Indian war whoop. Davey attempted to outdo him; the noise startled two crows out of a tree and sent them squawking into the air. The spell of silence was shattered, and everyone began to talk again. All of them were wearing old clothes, because, as Aunt Hilda said, "There's no sense in dressing up to cope with fifty years of dust." Uncle Jake was carrying a toolbox. Mr. Blake was carrying a small stepladder and a crowbar. Julian had two buckets and a mop, while the women and Portia were armed with brooms, brushes, and dustcloths and had their heads tied up in bandannas. "We look like some higgledy-piggledy left-over army," Portia said. Walking briskly, they came to a turn in the drive, the trees thinned out, and there before them stood the Villa Caprice. There it stood among its dead and brambled lawns, with all its windows boarded up and a big, tough, tangled vine, leafless now, tied round and round the battlements, the turrets, and the gables like a giant's wrapping twine. Beyond the house the ragged hedges looked black, and the queer tree that was called a monkey-puzzle tree looked black, too, and bristling. The whole scene was shabby and forbidding. "Oh, _dear_!" wailed Mrs. Blake. "I didn't remember it as being quite so--quite so--" "Bleak," Mr. Blake supplied. "And this is what we called a bargain! We must have been out of our minds!" Aunt Hilda, who wanted to be comforting, said: "You know, I think when you've got rid of that ghastly porch and ripped the boards off the windows, you'll feel very different about it."