"He means this," said Marcia, picking out a twenty-five-cent piece from the change the girl held. "Oh, thank you! I don't understand this American money," she explained. And Marcia and Janet added another query to their rapidly growing mental list. On the way back home, however, she grew silent again, and though the girls chatted back and forth about quite impersonal matters,--the crowded streets, the warm weather, the sights they passed,--she was not to be drawn into the conversation. And the nearer they drew to their destination, the more depressed she appeared to become. At last they reached the gate. "Shall you be going out again to-morrow?" ventured Marcia. "If so, we will go with you, if you care to have us, till you get used to the streets." The girl gave her a sudden, pleased glance. "I--I don't know," she said. "You see, Miss Benedict hurt her ankle a day or two ago, and she can't get around much, so--so I'm doing this for her. If she wants me to go to-morrow, I will. I'd be _so_ glad to go with you. How shall I let you know?" "Just hang a white handkerchief to your shutter before you go, and we'll see it. We'll watch for it!" cried Marcia, inventing the signal on the spur of the moment. And then, impetuously, she added: "My name is Marcia Brett, and this is Janet McNeil. Won't you tell us yours, if we're to be friends?" "I'm Cecily Marlowe," she answered, "and I'm _so_ glad to know you." As she spoke she was fumbling with the big key in the lock of the gate, and as the latter swung open, she turned once more to face them, with a little pent-up sob: "I don't know why I'm here--and I'm _so_ lonely!" Then, frightened at having revealed so much, she turned quickly away and shut the gate. As they listened to her footsteps retreating up the path and the closing of the front door Marcia and Janet turned to each other, a thousand questions burning on their tongues. But all they could exclaim in one breath was: "Did you _ever_!" CHAPTER IV THE BACKWARD GLANCE The next twenty-four hours were spent in delightful speculation. So her name was Cecily Marlowe! Was she any relation of Miss Benedict? "Marlowe" and "Benedict" were certainly dissimilar enough. "But then she might be a relation on Miss Benedict's mother's side," suggested Marcia. "Does it sound likely when you think what she said just at the last--that she didn't know why she was there?" replied Janet, scornfully. "She couldn't be in doubt about it if she were a _relation_, either come on a visit or there to stay!" Which argument settled _that_ question. "But where do you suppose she has come from?" marveled Marcia. "She said she'd always lived in a little country village, and she didn't know a thing about American money. She's foreign--that's certain. Even her clothes and her way of speaking show it. But from where?"