“Well, I am sure when I have a chance to speak to your father—­but, dear me, there are so many things!”

“Oh, Doro, I just want to ask you if you saw the ‘Babbling Brook’ in the audience?  She was fairly eating up little Mary with those big optics of hers.”

“Miss Brooks?  I did not see her,” answered Dorothy.  “Did she like Mary’s effort?”

“Like her?  I should, say she fairly loved her, but then, you see, a sister of hers had a baby girl once,” and Tavia laughed to cover up the mistake she had made in mentioning the affairs of Miss Brooks.  “There, Doro, dear, I’m going now.  To-morrow is another day, as your aunt says,” finished Tavia, kissing Dorothy fondly and leaving her chum to think over all the matters that now confused her tired, weary brain.

It was Roger who first tapped at his sister’s door the next morning.

“Doro,” he called, “when are we going out to see that ghost?”

“Ghost?” repeated the girl, rubbing her eyes and trying to collect her scattered thoughts.

“Yes; you know you promised,” and by this time Roger was in the room and had his arms around her neck.

“Oh,” she laughed, “we’ll take a ride out to the castle just as soon as—­as Ned is able to go.”

“He’s going out riding to-day—­I heard him say so,” persisted the boy.

“Well, we’ll see,” replied Dorothy.  “But you must run out now.  My! it’s almost nine o’clock.  I didn’t think it was so late.”

The entertainment had been so engrossing that all the thoughts of Tanglewood Park and the mystery concerning it had entirely escaped Dorothy’s memory for the time being.  But Roger had determined to know all about that “scream,” and only yesterday he had had a long talk with old Abe down at the station; a long, serious talk.  Abe told the little fellow that there “sure was a ghost up at the castle,” and when Joe, who was with Roger, asked about the lady the old liveryman had driven up there, Abe rolled up his eyes in an unpleasant fashion, and declared that the lady was a “near-ghost” herself.

Roger told all this, and more, to Dorothy, so she was obliged to make a tentative promise, at least, that she would go with him to the castle the very first moment she could spare.

The boy renewed his request after breakfast, and was quite insistent.

“I can’t go to-day,” said his sister.  “You know I have many little things to attend to, Roger.  It is almost Christmas, you remember, and—­”

“Oh, here are your letters; I almost forgot!” cried the little fellow suddenly, drawing from his pocket several envelopes.  “Nat went to the post-office while you were at breakfast.”

The boy tossed the missives down and ran off.  Dorothy glanced over her mail.  There were several letters from her school friends, as she could tell by the writing, and some from acquaintances in Dalton.  Then this one—­who could it be from?—­postmarked in a city from which she had never received any mail, and the address written in a strange hand.