the meaning of the initials, but
she could not imagine what pocket-money had to do with the matter, so
she wrote back:

All right. Only thirty cents. More next week.

C.

She passed it along to Joyce at the other end of the room, and returned
to Caesar in a more cheerful frame of mind. Joyce, she knew, would
explain all mysteries later, and she was content to wait.

Almost a week had passed since the first adventure of the Boarded-up
House, and nothing further had happened. Joyce and Cynthia were healthy,
normal girls, full of interests connected with their school, with
outdoor affairs, and with social life, so they had much to occupy them
beside this curious quest on which they had become engaged. A fraternity
meeting had occupied one afternoon, dancing-school another, a
tramping-excursion a third, and so on through the ensuing week. Not
once, however, in the midst of all these outside interests, had they
forgotten their strange adventure. When they were alone together they
talked of it incessantly, and laid elaborate plans for future amateur
detective work.

"It's just like a story!" Joyce would exclaim. "And who would ever have
thought of a _story_ in that old, Boarded-up House. And _us_ in the
midst of it!" Cynthia's first question that afternoon, on the way home
from high school, was:

"What did you ask about pocket-money for? I'm down pretty low on my
allowance, but I don't see what that's got to do with things." Joyce
laughed.

"Well, I'm lower yet--ten cents to last till the month's out! But hasn't
it struck you that we've got to have _candles_--plenty of them--and
matches, and a couple of candlesticks at least? How else can we ever get
about the place, pitch-dark as it all is? And if we tried to get them
from home, some one would suspect right away."

"Ten cents' worth of candles ought to last us quite a while," began the
practical Cynthia; "and ten cents more will buy a whole package of
safety-matches. And for five cents we can get a candlestick, but we'd
better stop at _one_ for the present, or we won't have a cent left
between us! Let's get them right now." While they were making their
purchases, Cynthia had another idea.

"I'll tell you what, Joyce, I'm going to take along a dust-cloth and
clean up around the window where we get in. My sweater was just black
with dirt and cobwebs last time, and Mother _almost_ insisted on an
explanation. Fortunately she was called away for something, just