Page:A Little Country Girl - Coolidge (1887).djvu/258

 hurriedly in at the door. Candace in her corner was invisible.

"Oh, Georgie, that dreadful creature is here again," she heard Berry say, while Georgie answered with a little despairing cry, "Not really! oh, Berry, what shall we do?" Then came a long whispered confabulation; then another tinkle at the door-bell.

"Frederic, I am engaged," Georgie called out.—"Come upstairs, Berry. If we stay here, some one is certain to break in." The two rushed across the hall. Candace heard their rapid steps on the stairs; then Georgie's door shut with a bang, and all was still.

Her book dropped into her lap unheeded. Her mind was full of puzzled amazement. Who was the "dreadful creature," and what did it all mean?

The silence in the house was unbroken except by the tick-tick of the tall clock. It made her nervous at last, and she went out on the lawn to get rid of the sensation. She picked a few flowers, pulled the seed-pods from one of the geraniums under her care,