Part 21 (1/2)
”About Walter and all?”
”Oh, no! I mean about what we saw at the boathouse.”
”Then you do admit we saw something?” cried Bess.
”That's just it,” said Nan drily. ”We did see something. Therefore it was not a ghost.”
Her insistence on this point vexed Bess not a little. She felt that they had seen a strange thing, and she wanted to tell the other girls about it. But what would be the use of doing that if her chum pooh-poohed the idea of a ghost and merely went to Henry, as she threatened to, and told him that some tramp, or other prowler, was hanging about the boathouse?
”For,” said Nan, ”the girls keep bathing suits and sweaters and all sorts of things down there and that fellow, whoever he is, may be light-fingered.”
”Dear me!” grumbled Bess, ”you never are romantic.”
”Humph! what's romantic about a disembodied spirit? Smells of the tomb!”
declared Nan.
There was one thing, however, that had to be told. The canoe was lost and Mrs. Cupp must be informed at once. So after supper the two chums sought that stern lady's room, which was right at the top of the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs.
As Nan and Bess approached this ”ogress' castle,” as the girls called Mrs. Cupp's room, a tall, thin lady was going in ahead of them. She had on her coat and hat and was evidently a visitor from outside.
”Dear me! who's that?” whispered Nan, to her chum.
”Oh! I know,” Bess replied eagerly. ”One of the girls pointed her out to me on the street and I never _could_ forget that funny, old-fas.h.i.+oned hat.”
”Well!” exclaimed Nan, hanging back, ”who is she?”
”Mrs. Cupp's sister. She lives alone in the village. She's a milliner.
That's why she wears such an awful hat, I suppose,” giggled Bess. ”By the same token shoemakers' wives go almost barefoot.”
”Hus.h.!.+” breathed Nan.
The visitor's high-pitched, querulous voice reached their ears plainly, for she had not taken pains to close the door.
”Well, now, Ida, what did I tell you?” she began. ”He's back again.”
”Goodness! how you startled me, Sadie Vane,” was Mrs. Cupp's response.
She had evidently been sitting at her desk with her back to the door.
”You'll be more startled, Ida Cupp, when you hear what I have to tell you,” Miss Vane went on to say hurriedly.
”Well! do shut the door. You needn't tell it to the whole school, Sadie,” said the matron, sharply.
The door banged.
”This is no time for us to interview Mrs. Cupp,” said Nan, sensibly, and she and her chum withdrew.
Linda Riggs had confided a garbled account of the boating accident to her particular chum and roommate, Cora Courtney. Of course, Cora eagerly spread the tidings. There was a group of excited girls in the main study when Nan and Bess came through the front hall, ready to pounce on them.
”Hey, sawneys!” ordered Mabel Schiff, a big girl who would graduate from the Hall at the end of the school year. ”Come in here and give an account of yourselves.”