guess Aunt doesn’t need your advice about such things. Come away. Come out of the orchard.”

Kate followed her, nonplussed, at sea. “What is the matter?” she demanded. “What are you afraid of, Elsie Frazier?” Then, stopping suddenly, “What was that? Listen!” Surely a door had closed softly up there in the room with the windows open!

“What was what?”

“Didn’t you hear?”

“No, of course I didn’t hear anything.”

“A door closed up there.”

“Nonsense! How could a door close up there?”

“Well, it did. I heard it just as plain. But perhaps it was a breeze that closed it. Only I don’t feel any breeze.”

“It must have been a breeze.”

“Well, it was a careful breeze. It shut the door ever so gently. Quite as though a door knob was turned. Oh, Elsie, do you suppose it is fairies—or something weird?”

“I don’t suppose anything. And Aunt Katherine will be expecting us in. Come.”

As they went Kate turned to look back several times at the orchard house. But no fairy lights twinkled for her in the windows, no doors or windows opened, no fairy stood on the doorstone beckoning her back. It was just a little old gray house in an orchard. But even so Kate felt it alive, awake somehow. Elsie could not spoil her feeling about it.

Just outside the lighted drawing-room Elsie turned about and faced Kate. She was not quite so tall and she was slighter. But her whole body was drawn up with extraordinary force and her face, in spite of its delicate elfin quality, was determined.

“Kate Marshall,” she said in a quiet tone, “you’re not to say one word to Aunt Katherine about those windows. Not one single word! And what’s more, you’re not to use the key that she will give you to-morrow. It’s not your mother’s house any more. You’ll only be disappointed. There’s nothing of her in there at all. I shall hate you and hate you and HATE you if you use that key. You’ve got to promise me.”

Kate did not flinch before this unexpected attack. But she was amazed. “Of course I sha’n’t promise you,” she contradicted. 

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