e awoke Ruth and I
had found her."

"But Grace's sweater! Where did it come from?" asked Miss Sallie weakly.

Ceally who entered the room at this moment, with her arms full of logs
for the fire, caught the end of the conversation. She looked about her
cautiously. Naki, her husband, was some distance away, cutting down the
underbrush which was growing too high near their cabin.

"Miss," whispered Ceally cautiously, "they do say there is a ghost up on
that mountain. It must have been a ghost that led Miss Mollie on that
lost trail. Once you strike that trail, there ain't no way of finding
your way back again, unless you follow some such clue as Miss Ruth's bits
of paper."

"Ghosts! Utter nonsense, Ceally!" scolded Miss Sallie. But under her
breath she confessed to herself: "If anything in this world could bring
me to believe in ghosts it would be this mysterious occurrence."

Ruth flew in at the door.

"Aunt Sallie," she cried, "here is a man on horseback, with a note from
Mr. Latham. He wants us to come down and spend the afternoon with him. He
says he will send for us in a carriage that can come almost all the way
up the hill, so we need only walk a little way. Do let's go! Want to,
Bab?" Ruth finished.

Miss Sallie looked dubious. "It is a good deal of a task, child, to go
down this hill, except when we mean to stay down," she protested.

"Oh, no, Aunt Sallie!" Ruth begged. "You know Naki goes down the hill
every day, on some errand or other. I have been to Lenox twice myself and
to Pittsfield once. I won't give you and Bab these letters, unless you
promise to accept. One is for Bab, from her mother; the other is for you,
from father."

Miss Stuart was reading Mr. Latham's note.

"My sister-in-law is with me," it read. "She joins her entreaties to
Reginald's and mine to beg our hillside fairies to come down to the earth
and have afternoon tea with us. We are to have no other guests, except a
few young people whom I am sure your girls will like to meet. Later on,
when you condescend to spend a few weeks in Lenox, it may be a pleasure
for you to know them. Certainly it will be a pleasure for them to know
you."

"The man is waiting outside for your answer," proclaimed Ruth, dancing
first on one foot and then on the other. "Here are pen and paper. Do
write and let me take the note out to him."

Miss Stuart allowed herself to be persuaded into accepting Mr. Latham's
invitation. Life on the hill was growing a