among the gently stirring foliage. Huge golden and black butterflies fluttered past them. Among the white and gold of blossom, bees hummed a deep, steady song as they pursued their endless task of honey-gathering.

On and on they went, passing through one grove after another until they glimpsed ahead the high, wrought-iron fence which shut in the estate on all four sides. Reaching it, they could look through to a small grassy open space beyond. Behind it rose a natural grove of tall palms. Set down fairly in the middle of the grove was a squat, weather-stained cottage of grayish stone.

“Oh, see that funny little house!” was Mabel’s interested exclamation. “I wonder whom it belongs to!”

“Let’s go over and pay it a visit,” instantly proposed Patsy. “Perhaps someone lives there[76] who can tell us about old Manuel Fereda and Eulalie, his granddaughter. It doesn’t look as though darkies lived there. Their houses are mostly tumble-down wooden shacks. Still it may be deserted. Anyway, we might as well go over and take a look at it.”

[76]

“How are we going to get out of here?” asked Eleanor. “I don’t see a gate.”

“There must be one somewhere along the west end,” declared Bee. “Let’s start here and follow the fence. Maybe we’ll come to one.”

“We’d better walk north through the grove then. There’s no path close to the fence and that grass is too high and jungly looking to suit me,” demurred Eleanor.

Traveling northward through the grove, their eyes fixed on the fence in the hope of spying a gate, the explorers walked some distance, but saw no sign of one. Finally retracing their steps to their starting point, they headed south and eventually discovered, not a gate, but a gap in the fence where the lower part of several iron palings had been broken away, leaving an aperture large enough for a man to crawl through.

“This means us,” called Patsy and ran toward it.

Energetically beating down the grass under it[77] with the stick she carried, she stooped and scrambled through to the other side, emitting a little whoop of triumph as she stood erect.

[77]

One by one her three companions followed suit until the four girls were standing on the grassy clearing, which, a few rods farther on, merged levelly into the 

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