guess if you tried for a month!" said Jack.

"She was sitting on a big stone, beside a big puddle that was left there
after the shower. She said she was playing she was a frog, and when she
stared at me through her glasses, and smiled, no, _grinned_ at me, I
couldn't help thinking she looked like one. Say, she had on a green
cloak, a regular frog-color."

"It must have been _Arabella_!" said Nancy.

"I don't know what her name was. I didn't ask her, but while I watched
her she hopped off the stone into the puddle with both feet, and cried,
'po-dunk!' just like an old bullfrog. My! Weren't her shoes wet!"

"I wonder what her Aunt Matilda said when she went home with wet feet,"
said Dorothy.

Without noticing what she said, Jack continued.

"I never saw such a queer girl!" he said, in disgust, "for when I told
her dragonflies would never bite, she said: 'They will. They'll sew your
eyes, and nose, and mouth up. Po-dunk!' and she hopped back on to the
stone, and grinned at me just as she did at first. Say! She made me feel
queer to look at her, and I turned and ran away. I wasn't afraid of her,
of course, but she _did_ make me feel queer!"

"She'd make any one feel queer," said Nancy as they turned toward the
dining-room.

Jack wished that they might have stayed longer in the hall. He had
intended to ask them if they knew Arabella, and if she was always doing
queer things, but Mrs. Dainty and Aunt Charlotte joined them, and they
went in for breakfast.

Mrs. Tiverton, coming in from an early walk, took Jack with her to the
other side of the dining-room. He looked across at them, and wondered
what they could have told of Arabella if they had had a chance. He
decided to question them, whispering softly to himself:

"I'll _make_ them tell me all they know about that funny girl."

For several days he tried to catch Dorothy or Nancy at a time when he
could question them.

He chased Dorothy up the long stairway one morning, only to see her
disappear into her room. He had not told her that he had wished to talk
with her, and she, believing that he was only chasing her for fun, ran
from him, laughing as she went.

He found Nancy, a few minutes later, and coaxed her to wait on the
landing.

"Now, Nancy," he said, "you've got to tell me something about that queer
girl that you and Dorothy know."

"If you mean Arabella," said Nancy, "I don't see what I could tell you,
only that she _is_ queer, and you know that now.