Page:Mistress Madcap Surrenders (1926).pdf/82

 Chattering blithely in the bright, cold sunshine, Mehitable and Tabitha soon emerged from the Lindsley house and wended their way toward the secret place of the mill. They carried the package between them, suspended from a long wooden stick that the Morris Town girl produced, each end of which rested upon a thin girlish shoulder. Tabitha, looking carefully around, at last held up her hand for silence, then she struck off from the narrow wagon trail, which led toward the river, into an almost impenetrable thicket. Mehitable, struggling along after her, trying to protect her eyes from the vicious back-springing branches and receiving a dozen scratches while so doing, trying, too, to keep the awkward bundle they were carrying from sliding along its stick into Tabitha, thought, whimsically, that Charity had been the wiser of the two, after all. But when they had fought their way beyond the thicket into a small open space, and had traversed to the very door of the mysterious mill, she caught her breath with excitement and would not have exchanged places with Charity if she could have.

She was doomed to disappointment about seeing the interior of the mill, however, for a man answered their knock and stopped them upon the threshold and though he thanked them courteously, they were not invited to enter. Tabitha, apparently used to this treatment, turned quietly