ock Holmes!"

"Mercy! what for?" cried Cynthia. "I'm sure _I_ don't!"

"Why, do you suppose Sherlock would have been all this time getting at
the final facts about our Boarded-up House? Of course not! He'd have had
it all worked out and proved by now!" Joyce got to her feet and began
roaming about restlessly. Suddenly she stopped in front of her
companion.

"I tell you, Cynthia, it _haunts_ me! I can't explain to you why, but I
feel there is something we haven't discovered yet,--something we _ought_
to know. It isn't just 'idle curiosity' as Professor Marlow would call
it! I never knew or heard of anything that went so--so _deep_ in me as
this thing has. That poor, loving, proud mother, and her terrible
misunderstanding with her splendid son!-- He was _right_, too, I can't
help but think. But was she in the wrong? I suppose we can't judge about
how people felt in those days. The whole thing is so different now,--all
forgotten and forgiven! But I've read that the Confederates considered
their cause almost a--a _religion_. So of course she would have felt the
shock of what her son did, terribly. And think how he must have felt,
too!

"And then to lose his life, almost in the beginning! Perhaps he and his
mother might have made it all up after the war was over, if he'd only
lived. It's--it's the saddest thing I ever heard!" Cynthia had risen
too, and they linked arms, strolling up and down the little orchard as
they talked.

"I feel exactly as you do about it, though I don't often speak of it,"
said Cynthia. "But, by the way, did it ever strike you that we might
find it interesting to look over some of the books in that old library?
Some of them looked very attractive to me. And even if it didn't lead to
anything, at least it would be good fun to examine them. I love old
books! Why not do it this afternoon?"

"Just the thing!" agreed Joyce. "I've thought of that too, but we've
never had much chance to do it, till now. This afternoon, right after
lunch!"

So the afternoon found them again in the dim, musty old library,
illuminating the scene extravagantly with five candles. Three sides of
the room were lined with book-shelves, reaching nearly to the ceiling.
The girls surveyed the bewildering rows of books, puzzled where to
begin.

"Oh, come over here!" decided Joyce, choosing the side opposite the
fireplace. "These big volumes look so interesting." She brushed the
thick dust off their backs, revealing the titles