hat I decided to come North
myself, and personally superintend putting the house in order. I could
not bear to leave this task to outsiders. I even thought that, if I
found I could endure the memories, I would live in it a while, for the
sake of the old happy years with my little boy. I even had my trunks
packed and my ticket bought, when suddenly I came down with typhoid
fever, so severe an attack that it was thought I could not live. That
ended all thoughts of my coming North for a long while, as I was
miserably weak and helpless for months after, and in fact, have never
quite recovered my strength. The years drifted on and with them came old
age, and the reluctance to make the long journey and endure the strain
of it all. Had it not been for Miss Cynthia's letter, I should never
have come.

"But, to change the subject a trifle, my son is very anxious to know how
you two young things have come to be concerned in all this, and I have
not yet had time to tell him--fully. Will you not give him an account of
it now? It is very wonderful."

And so they began, first Joyce and then Cynthia,--interrupting and
supplementing each other. They were still rather anxious on the subject
of meddling and trespassing, but they did not try to excuse themselves,
recounting the adventures simply and hiding nothing. The older people
listened intently, sometimes amused, sometimes touched, often more
deeply moved than they cared to show.

"We began it at first just for fun,--we pretended to be detectives. But
as it went on, we got more and more deeply interested, till at last
this--this all seemed more important than our own lives," ended Joyce.
"Only, I know we did wrong in the beginning ever to come in here at all.
We are trespassers and meddlers, and I hope you can forgive us!"

"The dearest little meddlers in the world!" cried Mrs. Collingwood. "Can
any forgiveness be necessary?" And she cuddled them both in her arms.

"There's just one thing _I'd_ like to ask, if you don't mind," said
Cynthia, coming suddenly out of a brown study. "It's the one thing we
never could account for. Why was that room up-stairs locked, and what
has become of the key?" Mrs. Collingwood flushed.

"I locked the door and threw the key down the well--that night!" she
answered slowly. "I don't suppose you can quite understand, if you are
not afflicted with a passionate temper, as I was. When my son--when
Fairfax here--had gone, and I was shutting up the house