"Oh, you have found them!" exclaimed Belle. "Come right in. We have tea all ready, and you are not to speak one word until you are refreshed," and she grasped Nellie's hand, and gave Rose a most welcome greeting. Andy was loath to leave the car. He wanted to start it, to stop it, and to do all sorts of things with the interesting machine. Finally, when Rose and Nellie had been refreshed, Bess and Belle provided seats for all on the broad porch, just as the detective and a strange man turned around the corner and they, too, joined the happy group. "This is a reporter for the daily paper," said the detective. "I thought it best to have him come right down now, and get this thing all straight. It will be best to tell the story from the start, and so clear up the false impressions about the girls." The newspaper man took out a pad of paper and a pencil in the most businesslike way, without presuming on any personal privilege, such as an introduction, or a word of acknowledgment, for the detective's rather flattering account of the scribe's ability. "Perhaps I had better ask you a few questions," the reporter began simply, turning to Rose. "Why did you run away from Mrs. Ramsy's house?" "Because she was unjust to us," replied Rose. "She had never treated us decently, but when she took the very last thing we owned of our dead mother's--her wedding ring--we just took the little case it had been in, put it in a crate of berries we left under the tree for this young lady, and then--we went away." "Where did you get that jewel case?" asked the tall detective, who seemed to be doing the most of the talking. "We found it in Miss Schenk's scrap basket. She told us to throw out everything in the basket, and so, when we found the little leather case we decided it would be nice to keep mamma's ring in." "And that was how you got the case!" Cora could not help exclaiming. "Yes. Why?" asked Nellie in surprise. "Oh, nothing. Go on," said the detective. "Then I found the card with the address of this house," continued Rose. "We intended to come down this way to work for the summer, and we knew that this house was vacant. That is how we came to sleep here one night." "That's the card I picked up under the window," interrupted Andy, to whom the whole proceedings seemed as "thrilling as could be any professional theatrical performance." "Then," Nellie helped out, "we slept one dreadful night in an old stone house. And it was haunted." "That was the house by the spring," volunteered Jack, "where we found the hat, and other things." "Yes," said Nellie, "we did leave some things there." "And I found your dress away out on the road one night, very late," Bess put in, while the newspaper man smiled at the queer story with so many "personal contributions."