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Rh brusque fashion. "It was through no skill of your own, I'll be bound. Your poor mother and me were worried to death all the time you were away—gallivanting over the ocean."

Aunt Gertrude did not add that Mrs. Hardy's worries had been chiefly occasioned by her aunt's dire predictions of the certain death that awaited the boys on the search. However, her tone was modified somewhat when she realized that they had indeed been hunting for the missing chums and she made it her business to call on the Hoopers and the Mortons to condole with them, for she was a good-hearted soul in her own way—although it is to be feared that her condolences did more to add to the certainty that the boys were drowned than they served to cheer up the sorrowing parents.

The third day after the Hardy boys returned she was sorting over the morning mail, having duly taken charge of every department of the household.

"Ha!" she exclaimed, holding a letter up to the light. "Here's a letter addressed to Fenton Hardy. Bad news in it, I'll be bound."

Aunt Gertrude could smell bad news a mile away, Frank often said.

"Bad news in it. I can tell. I dreamed about haystacks last night. Haystacks! Whenever I dream about haystacks it means bad news. I never knew it to fail. Open the letter, Laura."