rtled eyes. "Oh, we can't let him in! Neither of us
is fit to go down, and there isn't a spark of fire in this big barn of
a house, even in the kitchen stove."

"I can't go," announced Claribel. "I am simply covered with feathers.
It will take an hour at least to pick them off."

Wilma held up two grimy hands, and pointed to the front breadth of her
wrapper, which had been torn to ribbons on a lurking nail.

"Do you think he would recognise in either of us one of the 'charming
girls of Marchmont' that his mother painted?"

"Maybe it's only a book-agent after all," suggested Claribel,
hopefully. But the knocking sounded again, and Wilma shook her head.

"No, there was that letter to sister, you know, and it sounds just as
I've imagined Tom would knock, from what his mother told of him--so
peremptory and lordly, somehow, as if he wouldn't take no for an
answer."

"What shall we do?" groaned Claribel, desperately. "Even if we were
fit to go down, there's nothing but bread and tea for lunch. Oh, if
sister were only home!"

[Illustration: "AT THE GATE HE TURNED FOR A LONG BACKWARD LOOK."]

While they hesitated and exclaimed and debated, they heard a step
crunch on the gravel far below, and looking down, saw a dripping
umbrella, a broad back, and two long legs striding down the walk. Just
above the attic window where they crouched, a grinning gargoyle
spouted a stream of water past the tiny diamond panes. Through this
miniature cataract they watched their departing guest. At the gate he
turned for a long backward look, and they had a glimpse of a handsome
boyish face, as he gazed up at the stately pillared old mansion. The
roses were gone, and the rain beating against it made it look
unspeakably old and cheerless. All the front shutters were closed, and
no smoke wreathed from any of its chimneys. Evidently he thought the
place deserted, seeing no signs of life anywhere about it.

As his gaze wandered upward to the grinning old gargoyle, the girls
hastily drew back. When they peeped out again, he had gone.

"Do you realise what we have done?" asked Claribel, with tears of
mortification springing to her eyes. "We have kept still and acted
another lie for the sake of our ancestral latch-string. Oh, why
haven't we servants and plenty to eat and wear as they had in the good
old times Mam Daphne tells about, so that we could always be at home
to everybody?"

"And he looked _so_ interesting," wailed Wilma. "I'd love t