close softly, just as though a door knob had turned as they stood below those open back windows. And why were those windows open? Elsie knew, Kate was sure. The little orchard house harboured some secret of Elsie’s.

But what was that! Kate sat up in bed and bent toward the window, her eyes straining. A light, flickering, was moving down through the house! Kate watched it as it went by several windows, breathless. Soon it disappeared altogether, and a second after Kate thought she heard the front door of the little orchard house softly closing, or opening; but that must have been fancy, for the orchard house was much too far away for a sound of that quality to carry to her.

As she curled down into bed again her eyes crinkled with her smile in the darkness. Well, here was mystery. She would write Sam and Lee that she would save their mystery story for duller times. Now she was living in one!

CHAPTER VI “I WILL PAY FOR IT”

CHAPTER VI

“I WILL PAY FOR IT”

Kate was waked next morning by Elsie moving about in her room. She opened her eyes quickly and sat up. To her surprise Elsie was dressed and ready for the day. She looked as fresh as the July morning in a blue and white gingham, white sport shoes and stockings. Her hair was pinned up at her ears, and that made her look older but not less pretty than last night.

Kate was not a girl to wake up with a grudge on a morning like this, or on any morning, in fact. So she sang out now, “Hello!”

But Elsie, apparently, had not been mellowed by sleep. She responded to the “hello” with a nod. Then, much to Kate’s surprise, she came directly to the bed and picked up “The King of the Fairies” from the table there.

“Bertha told me you had borrowed my book,” she said. “I don’t mind your borrowing books. But I think you ought to ask. And Aunt Katherine didn’t give me this one. I’m going to read outdoors before breakfast, and I want ‘The King of the Fairies,’ if you don’t mind.”

Kate laughed. “It’s my copy, not yours,” she said. “Mother and I gave it to each other last Easter. It’s a perfectly great book, Mother thinks, and I brought it with me here because I love it so.”

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