"But Grace's sweater! Where did it come from?" asked Miss Sallie weakly.
Ceally who entered the room at this moment, with her arms full of logs for the fire, caught the end of the conversation. She looked about her cautiously. Naki, her husband, was some distance away, cutting down the underbrush which was growing too high near their cabin.
"Miss," whispered Ceally cautiously, "they do say there is a ghost up on that mountain. It must have been a ghost that led Miss Mollie on that lost trail. Once you strike that trail, there ain't no way of finding your way back again, unless you follow some such clue as Miss Ruth's bits of paper."
"Ghosts! Utter nonsense, Ceally!" scolded Miss Sallie. But under her breath she confessed to herself: "If anything in this world could bring me to believe in ghosts it would be this mysterious occurrence."
"Aunt Sallie," she cried, "here is a man on horseback, with a note from Mr. Latham. He wants us to come down and spend the afternoon with him. He says he will send for us in a carriage that can come almost all the way up the hill, so we need only walk a little way. Do let's go! Want to, Bab?" Ruth finished.
Miss Sallie looked dubious. "It is a good deal of a task, child, to go down this hill, except when we mean to stay down," she protested.
"Oh, no, Aunt Sallie!" Ruth begged. "You know Naki goes down the hill every day, on some errand or other. I have been to Lenox twice myself and to Pittsfield once. I won't give you and Bab these letters, unless you promise to accept. One is for Bab, from her mother; the other is for you, from father."
Miss Stuart was reading Mr. Latham's note.
"My sister-in-law is with me," it read. "She joins her entreaties to Reginald's and mine to beg our hillside fairies to come down to the earth and have afternoon tea with us. We are to have no other guests, except a few young people whom I am sure your girls will like to meet. Later on, when you condescend to spend a few weeks in Lenox, it may be a pleasure for you to know them. Certainly it will be a pleasure for them to know you."
"The man is waiting outside for your answer," proclaimed Ruth, dancing first on one foot and then on the other. "Here are pen and paper. Do write and let me take the note out to him."