“I suppose it’s the same,” put in Billie, looking at the album as if it had not occurred to her before

   that this might not be Miss Arbuckle’s album, after all.

   “Of course it is, silly,” Laura went on impatiently. “It isn’t likely that two people would be foolish enough to lose albums on the same day. If it had been a stick pin now, or a purse——”

   “Yes, yes, go on,” Billie interrupted. “You were talking about mysteries.”

   “Well, it is, isn’t it?” demanded Laura, becoming so excited she could not talk straight. “What was Miss Arbuckle doing in the woods with her album, in the first place?”

   “She might have been looking at it,” suggested Vi mildly.

   Billie giggled at the look Laura gave Vi.

   “Yes. But may I ask,” said Laura, trying to appear very dignified, “why, if she only wanted to

    look

   at the pictures, she couldn’t do it some place else—in her room, for instance?”

   “Goodness, I’m not a detective,” said poor Vi. “If you want to ask any questions go and ask Miss Arbuckle. I didn’t lose the old album.”

   Laura gave a sigh of exasperation.

   “A person might as well try to talk to a pair of wooden Indians,” she cried, then turned appealingly to Billie. “Don’t you think there’s something mysterious about it, Billie?”

   “Why, it does seem kind of queer,” Billie admitted, adding quickly as Laura was about to turn

   upon Vi with a whoop of triumph. “But I don’t think it’s very mysterious. Probably Miss Arbuckle just wanted to be alone or something, and so she brought the album out into the woods to look it over by herself. I like to do it sometimes myself—with a book I mean. Just sneak off where nobody can find me and read and read until I get so tired I fall asleep.”

   “Well, but you can’t look at pictures in a shabby old album until you feel so tired you fall asleep,” grumbled Laura, feeling like a cat that has just had a saucer of rich cream snatched from under its 

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