"No, Aunt Minerva!" answered Marcia, "we are sitting by the window." "Well, you must go to bed _at once_! It's nearly midnight. You won't either of you be fit for a thing to-morrow. Now, mind, not another word! Good-night!" "Good-night!" they both answered, but heaved a sigh when Aunt Minerva was out of hearing. "It's no use!" whispered Marcia. "We'll have to stop for to-night. But there's lots more, and the _most_ interesting part of it, too. Well, never mind, I'll tell you all the rest to-morrow!" CHAPTER II THE FACE BEHIND THE SHUTTER Janet had no sooner hopped out of bed next morning than she flew to the window to examine "Benedict's Folly" by broad daylight. In the streaming sun of a June morning the dingy old mansion certainly bore out the truth of Marcia's mysterious description. "Gracious! I should think you would have been interested in it from the first!" she exclaimed. "Interested in what?" yawned Marcia, sleepily, opening her eyes. "'Benedict's Folly,' of course! Let's see," went on Janet, who possessed a very practical, orderly mind; "from your story last night it seems there must be two people living there--but look here! how did you know, Marcia, that it was another old lady you saw that night when the shutter blew open?" "Why, for several reasons," answered Marcia. "In the first place, the one who goes out is short and slight. The one sitting in the chair was evidently large, and rather stout, and--and different, somehow, although I didn't see either of their faces. And then, it wasn't the lady in the chair who closed the shutter. She evidently never moved. So it _must_ have been some one else." "Yes, it must have been," agreed Janet, convinced. "Queer that nobody seems to know about the second one. I wonder who she is? And are there any more? Go on with your story, Marcia." "No," said Marcia. "Wait till we can be by ourselves for a long while. I don't want to be interrupted. Aunt Minerva's going out this morning, and then we'll have a chance." So, later in the morning, the two girls sat by Marcia's window, each occupied with a dainty bit of embroidery, and Marcia began anew: "Well, after that rainy night, for several days I didn't see a thing more that was interesting about the old house or the queer people who live in it. I used to watch once in a while to see if the little lady in black would go out again in the afternoon, as she did before, but she didn't. Then, a day or two later, I did something that surprised even myself, for I hadn't the faintest _intention_ of doing it. I had been taking a walk that afternoon and was just coming home, passing on the way the high brick wall of the Benedict house. It was just as I reached the closed gate that an idea popped into my head.