“In the garret?” cried Miss Titus, shrilly. “Well, then! they’d stay there for all of me. I wouldn’t hunt up there for a pot of gold!” Nor would Ruth—for she did not expect any such hoard as that had been hidden away in the garret by Uncle Peter. She often looked curiously at Aunt Sarah, however, when she sat with the old lady, tempted to ask her point-blank what she knew about Uncle Peter’s secrets. When a person is as silent as Aunt Sarah habitually was, it is only natural to surmise that the silent one may have much to tell. Ruth had not the courage, however, to advance the subject. She, like her younger sisters, stood in no little awe of grim Aunt Sarah. Mr. Howbridge remained away and Miss Titus completed such work as Ruth dared have done, and removed her machine and cutting table from the old Corner House. The days passed for the Kenway girls in cheerful occupations and such simple pleasures as they had been used to all their lives. Agnes would, as she frankly said, have been glad to “make a splurge.” She begged to give a party to the few girls they had met but Ruth would not listen to any such thing. “I think it’s mean!” Aggie complained. “We want to get folks to coming here. If they think the old house is haunted, we want to prove to them that it is haunted only by the Spirit of Hospitality.” “Very fine! very fine!” laughed Ruth. “But we shall have to wait for that, until we are more secure in our footing here.” “‘More secure!’” repeated Agnes. “When will that ever be? I don’t believe Mr. Howbridge will ever find Uncle Peter’s will. I’d like to hunt myself for it.” “And perhaps _that_ might not be a bad idea,” sighed Ruth, to herself. “Perhaps we ought to search the old house from cellar to garret for Uncle Peter’s hidden papers.” Something happened, however, before she could carry out this half-formed intention. Tess and Dot had gone down Main Street on an errand for Ruth. Coming back toward the old Corner House, they saw before them a tall, dark lady, dressed in a long summer mantle, a lace bonnet, and other bits of finery that marked her as different from the ordinary Milton matron doing her morning’s marketing. She had a little girl with her. “I never saw those folks before,” said Dot to Tess. “No. They must be strangers. That little girl is wearing a pretty dress, isn’t she?” Tess and Dot came abreast of the two. The little girl _was_ very showily dressed. Her pink and white face was very angelic in its expression—while in repose. But she chanced to look around and see the Kenway girls looking at her, and instantly she stuck out her tongue and made a face. “Oh, dear! She’s worse than that Mabel Creamer,” said Tess, and she took Dot’s hand and would have hurried by, had the lady not stopped them. “Little girls! little girls!” she said, commandingly. “Tell me where the house is, in which Mr. Peter Stower lived. It is up this way somewhere they told me at the station.”