"But why--why," said Joyce, speaking her thought aloud, "was it all left just like this? Why weren't things cleared up and put away? What could have happened? Cynthia, this is the strangest thing I ever heard of!" Cynthia only stared, and offered no explanation. Plainly, she was impressed at last. "Come on!" half whispered Joyce, "Let's see the room across the hall. I'm crazy to explore it all!" Together they tiptoed to the other side of the hall. A kind of awe had fallen upon them. There was more here than even Joyce had hoped or imagined. This was a house of mystery. The apartment across the hall proved to be the drawing-room. Though in evident disarray it, however, exhibited fewer signs of the strange, long-past agitation. In dimensions it was similar to the dining-room, running from front to back of the house. Here, too, was another elaborate candelabrum, somewhat smaller than the first, queer, spindle-legged, fiddle-backed chairs, beautiful cabinets and tables, and an old, square piano, still open. The chairs stood in irregular groups of twos and threes, chumming cozily together as their occupants had doubtless done, and over the piano had been carelessly thrown a long, filmy silk scarf, one end hanging to the floor. Upon everything the dust was indescribably thick and cobwebs hung from the ceiling. "Do you know," spoke Joyce, in a whisper after they had looked a long time, "I think I can guess part of an explanation for all this. There was a party here, long, long ago,--perhaps a dinner-party. Folks had first been sitting in the drawing-room, and then went to the dining-room for dinner. Suddenly, in the midst of the feast, something happened,--I can't imagine what,--but it broke up the good time right away. Every one jumped up from the table, upsetting chairs and dropping napkins. Perhaps they all rushed out of the room. Anyway, they never came back to finish the meal. And after that, the owner shut the house and boarded it up and went away, never stopping to clear up or put things to rights. Awfully sudden, that, and awfully queer!" "Goodness, Joy! You're as good as a detective! How did you ever think all that out?" murmured Cynthia, admiringly. "Why, it's very simple," said Joyce. "The drawing-room is all right,--just looks like any other parlor where a lot of people have been sitting, before it was put to rights. But the dining-room's different. Something happened there, suddenly, and people just got their things on and left, after that! Can't you see it? But what _could_ it have been? Oh, I'd give my _eyes_ to know, Cynthia!