Augusta Huiell Seaman

“ It must have made quite an impression on me, because I was a good deal younger and didn't generally listen much to what they were saying at table."
"Well," announced Cynthia, still standing where she had stopped, and speaking with great positiveness, "there's only one thing to do now, and that is, find out who the old lady is and hunt her up!"
"I suppose I can find out her name from Father—if he remembers it—but what then? I can't go and scrape up an acquaintance with a perfectly strange person, and she may live in Timbuctoo!" objected Joyce. ”

“ Most people do, don't they? What do you inquire for, Duckie? Thinking of founding an old people's home?" he asked teasingly.
"Oh, no! But who are they, Father? Do you mind telling me?"
"Mercy, Joyce! I can't think just now of all of them!" He was deep in a preëlection article in his paper, and wanted to return to it.
"But can't you think of just a few?" she implored.
"Well, you are the queerest child! There's Grandfather Lambert, and your Great-aunt Lucia, and old Mr. Selby, and—oh, I can't think, Joyce! What's all this foolishness anyway?" ”

“ Filled with new hope over this find, the girls had continued to search diligently through the neglected old mansion, strong in the belief that they would eventually discover, if not the missing key, at least a trail of clues that would lead to the unraveling of the mystery. The mystery, however, refused to be unraveled. They made no further discoveries, and to-day even Joyce expressed herself as completely discouraged.
"There's just one thing that seems to me thoroughly foolish," Cynthia continued. "It's your still insisting that we keep from mentioning the Boarded-up House to outsiders. ”