r of the latter, two funny little steps led up to a door, and
on opening it, they found themselves in the kitchen. This bore signs of
as much confusion as the neighboring apartment. Unwashed dishes and
cooking utensils lay all about, helter-skelter, some even broken, in the
hurry with which they had been handled. But, apart from this further
indication of the haste with which a meal had been abandoned unfinished,
there was little to hold the interest, and the girls soon turned away.

"Now for up-stairs!" cried Joyce. "That's where I've been longing to
get. We will find something interesting there, I'll warrant." With
Goliath scampering ahead, they climbed the white, mahogany-railed
staircase. On the upper floor they found a wide hall corresponding with
the one below, running from front to back, crossed by a narrower one
connecting the wings with the main part of the house. Turning to their
left, they went down the narrow one, peering about them eagerly. The
doors of several bedrooms stood open.

Into the first they entered. The high, old-fashioned, four-post bed with
its ruffled valance and tester was still smoothly made up and
undisturbed. The room was in perfect order. But Joyce's eye was caught
by two candlesticks standing on the mantel.

"Here's a find!" she announced. "We'll take these to use for our
candles. They're nicer and handier than our tin one. We will keep that
for an emergency."

"But ought we disturb them?" questioned Cynthia.

"Oh, you are _too_ particular! What earthly harm can it do? Here! Take
this one and I'll carry the other. This must have been a guest-room,
and no one was occupying it when--it all happened. Let's look in the one
across the hall." This one also proved precisely similar, bed untouched
and furniture undisturbed. Another, close at hand, had the same
appearance. They next ventured down a narrower hall, over what was
evidently the kitchen wing. On each side were bedrooms, four in all,
with sparse, plain furnishings and cot-beds. Each room presented a
tumbled, unkempt appearance.

"I guess these must have been the servants' rooms," remarked Cynthia.

"That's the first right guess you've made!" retorted Joyce,
good-naturedly, as she glanced about. "And they all left in a hurry,
too, judging from the way things are strewn about. I wonder--"

"What?" cried Cynthia, impatient at the long pause.

"Oh, nothing much! I just wonder whether they went off of their own
accord, or were di