Mrs. Cupp was fairly caught. She had partaken of the hospitality of the forbidden feast. Having accepted the chocolate she made but weak protest against the heartier viands. A delightfully arranged plateful appeared like magic before her and she found a fork in her hand.
Bess was almost bursting with suppressed laughter, and even Nan had difficulty in keeping a straight face. Laura Polk had certainly stepped into the breach. "She deserves a leather medal," whispered May Winslow.
"I'll give her one of my clocks," promised Amelia.
The girls gathered quietly about the long table and the food began to disappear. Perhaps they were not quite as hilarious as they expected to be at the feast; but Mrs. Cupp's presence did not make the viands any the less delicious to the palate. And all of the girls were anxious to hear the tale of the matron's fright.
"What could it have been you saw?" May asked.
"I--I don't know. Something black," was the sober reply.
"O-o-o!" from Grace and Lillie. "_All_ black?"
"Did it look like a black dog?" asked Nan, the practical.
"I declare! it might have been," Mrs. Cupp said, with some relief. "Of course," she added, with sudden suspicion, "you girls didn't have anybody on watch outside?"
"No. We were too scatterbrained for that," laughed Laura.
"And we did not think our light could be seen through any crack," added Nan.
"How--how did you know we were here, then?" blurted out Bess.
"Ahem! I knew. That is sufficient," said Mrs. Cupp, more in her usual tone.
Then it was true. Nan knew that somebody had played traitor. Mrs. Cupp had been told of the party in the haunted boathouse by some jealous girl, or she would never have come back to the Hall from the village by the shore road. It was a roundabout way, and lonely.
"The road was very dark," explained the still excited matron. "When I came to the big boulder just the other side of the boat landing, something sprang out of the bushes and chased me. It was black, and looked like a man or boy, only it was on four legs--or its hands and knees."
"Maybe it was a dog," said Bess, doubtfully.
"'The black dog Remorse,' no less!" whispered Laura to Nan. "It was the 'black dog' of Mrs. Cupp's conscience, I guess."
"Hush!" returned Nan. She was worried by the happening. The raid on their feast, the information evidently lodged about their frolic with Mrs. Cupp, and this "black thing" that had startled them all, seemed to be all parts of a plot.