"Lemme go!" repeated Margaret, angrily.

"What did you chase down here after me for?" asked Rafe, the curious.

"I, I thought mebbe you was comin' to hunt for something," stammered the
girl.

"So I was. For Nancy here," laughed Rafe.

"Thought 'twas somethin' of mine," said the girl. "Lemme go now!"

She jerked away her hand and scuttled into the house that they were then
just passing.

"Wonder what the little imp came out to watch me for?" queried Rafe.

After they had arrived at home and the excitement o the return was over;
after she and Tom had told as much of their adventures as they thought
wise, and Nan had retired to the east chamber, she thought again about
Margaret and her queer actions by the roadside.

"Why, that tree is where Margaret hides her most precious possessions,"
said Nan, suddenly, sitting up in bed. "Why, what could it be she was
afraid Rafe would find there? Why can that child have hidden something
there that she doesn't want any of us to see?"

Late as it was, and dark as it was, and stormy as the night was, she
felt that she must know immediately what Margaret Llewellen had hidden
in the hollow tree.

Chapter XXIX. GREAT NEWS FROM SCOTLAND

Nan put two and two together, and the answer came right.

She got out of bed, lit her lamp again and began to dress. She turned
her light down to a dim glimmer, however, for she did not want her aunt
to look out of the window of her bedroom on the other side of the parlor
and catch a glimpse of her light.

In the half darkness Nan made a quick toilet; and then, with her
raincoat on and hood over her head, she hesitated with her hand upon the
knob of the door.

"If I go through the parlor and out the side door, Aunt Kate will hear
me," thought Nan. "That won't do at all."

She looked at the further window. Outside the rain was pattering and
there was absolutely no light. In the pocket of her raincoat Nan had
slipped the electric torch she had brought from home, something of which
Aunt Kate cordially approved, and was always begging Uncle Henry to buy
one like it.

The pocket lamp showed her the fastenings of the screen. Tom had made
it to slide up out of the way when she wanted to open or close the sash.
And, as far as she could see, any one could open it from the outside as
easily as from the room itself.

"And that's just what she did," decided Nan. "How foolish of me not to
think of it before."

With this enigmatical observat