Dorothy dropped the letter in her lap. She was , surprised, . Then, Miss did not take the ring? And why should the woman detective do such a thing?  
For an instant only that thought occupied her. The next she pitied Miss Dearing.
 
"Poor woman!" she sighed to herself. "After all, perhaps she is really a victim of circumstances. And what a letter! If I only could help her—see her before Christmas."
 
A smile, unbidden, stole across Dorothy's face as she pictured all the tasks she had undertaken to accomplish "before Christmas."
 
"Luckily there are a few days left," she concluded "One can crowd a great many things into two real, living days."
 
She hurried upstairs to read the letter again in . The positive tone of sorrow in the missive touched her heart. There certainly did seem many things to do, but here was plainly an emergency case. If she could manage to go to the city, obtain Miss Dearing's address from the store, go to see her, and then stop at Dalton on her way back——"
 
"I ought to be able to do that," she told herself. "And it would be such a joy to take away all Tavia's worry before Christmas Day."
 
Then came the recollection that she really knew nothing to tell Travers—she really did not know what Tavia's trouble was. All the girl's conversation on that point amounted to nothing more than inferences, vague and uncertain.
 
"I am positive Tavia thinks I know all about it," concluded Dorothy, "and I have just a mind to ask her . It would be so much easier than beating about the bush this way."
 
"Doro! Doro!" screamed Roger at her door. "Come on! Get ready! We're going out—for another—Christmas tree! Out to ghost park."
 
"I—can't!" called back his sister, but the next moment Nat was beside her.
 
"Come on," he ordered, "get on your togs. We've got to get a hospital tree. The ladies insist it shall be handpicked, and we've got to go to Tanglewood Park."
 
"But do I really have to go?" begged Dorothy. "It's cold to ride, and I wanted to——?"
 
"Put pink bows on red ! Oh, chuck it, Doro! I hate the smell of Christmas. Tom and Roland are going, and so is Tavia."
 
He made a queer face as he said this—one of those indescribable boy illustrations quite beyond .
 
"Is she?" asked Dorothy, not knowing anything better to say.
 
"And Tom and Roland, I repeat. We are going to duck the kiddies. Too cold for little boys."
 
"Oh, then I shan't go," declared Dorothy. "We've been Joe and Roger so long."
 
"But they don't want to go," insisted Nat. "Sammy Blake is launching his iceboat."
 
"Oh, I suppose that is a superior attraction even to ghosts," said Dorothy, laughing, "But why do we have to get a tree from the park? Couldn't we buy one?"
 
"Just like a girl. We couldn't possibly buy trees last week, because—they would not be hand-picked. This week why can't we buy them and—hang the handpicked," he finished. "Now, do you understand, little girl, that the tree is to be in the near-infant in the hospital?"
 
"Oh, I suppose there's no use arguing," Dorothy. "I may as well give in."
 
"May better. Hurry along, now. We're to have a lunch, and get gone directly after. It's time to eat now," and he glanced at his watch.
 
Certainly the morning had passed—and the afternoon would no doubt be equally short. Dorothy hurried to get her warm wraps, called to Tavia, and was at the lunch-table before Nat had returned from the garage, whence he brought the Fire Bird.
 
"If you do not get caught in a snowstorm this time," commented Major Dale, "I will begin to lose faith in my prophetic bones. They ache for heavy snow."
 
"Put it off until to-morrow, Uncle Frank," advised Nat. "Then we may get the runners out."
 
"No, it's not that long off," insisted the major, perceptibly under the aches and pains for the coming storm. "I shouldn't wonder but it reached us by sundown."
 
Ned was much better, able to sit near the window and wave to the departing ones.
 
Tavia looked almost happy. Somehow, since she to "stick to Dorothy," much of her apparent trouble seemed to have disappeared. She was brighter than she had been for days, and even Nat threw off the restraint he had shown toward her lately. At The Elms they picked up Tom, with Roland's regrets, and with a dangerous-looking in hand—to bag the game with.
 
"Roland had another dinner date," he explained. "I'm glad I'm not handsome."
 
"But the ax?" asked Nat
 
"For the little tree, you know," replied Tom. "I've tried to catch Christmas trees before."
 
"Well, we are pretty well loaded up," added Nat, producing from his pocket a revolver.
 
"Oh!" screamed Tavia; "for goodness' sake is this a murderous plot? I—want—my—mamma——"
 
"There, there, little girl, don't cry," simpered Tom. "A gun is a fine thing in a jungle——"
 
"Where ghosts scream," added Dorothy.
 
"And buggies ride bugs," put in Nat, shifting the lever for more speed. "Well, it's up to us to get there first, and then we may shoot up the whole woods if we like. The girls may—may sit under a shady tree."
 
The deep gloom of an approaching storm made this proposal sound quite ridiculous, and Dorothy declared she would prefer sitting in the Fire Bird at a safe distance from the shooting. Tavia threatened to crawl under the seat, and even she would leave the car at once if the hatchet and revolver were not at once put away—"out of her sight!"
 
"Well, I have made up my brilliant mind," said Nat, "that if that screaming thing is in the woods I am going to get it dead or alive," and he put up the pistol for the time being.
 
Talk of the play, and of Ned's condition, occupied much of the remaining time consumed in the run to the woods, and when the tall trees of Tanglewood Park finally faced the strip of road the Fire Bird was covering, snowflakes were beginning to fall. And so fiercely did the winds blow, that presently Nat had all he could do to manage the machine.
 
"No jollying about this," he made out to say, "I guess it's to the castle for ours, whether we want to hunt ghosts or ."
 
"Oh, will we really have to go in that dreadful place?" Tavia. "I think I would as soon die of freezing as die——"
 
"Of scaring," interrupted Tom, laughing. "Well, there is no cause for alarm in either direction," he went on, "but I think it will be a good idea to get out of this as quickly as possible."
 
It surely was a gale now, and the wind seemed so with the biting of snow, that Dorothy and Tavia were quite satisfied to bury their frost-bitten faces deep in the fur of muffs and scarfs, while the young men turned up their overcoat collars and turned down the flaps of the heavy caps, none too heavy, however, to keep out the of the newly arrived .
 
Straight for the drive to the castle Nat directed the machine, and by the time the old broken-down steps of the once porch were reached, even Tavia was glad to jump out of the Fire Bird and get her breath in a part of the old balcony.
 
"Whew!" whistled Tom. "This is something worth while for Christmas! I never saw a storm develop any faster than this."
 
"Looks bad," commented Nat anxiously, for an in a snowstorm is not to be depended upon, "Hope it quits long enough for us to dash back home."
 
"Well, we can't try it now, at any rate," replied Tom. "What do you say to exploring?" and he went to the great, old oak door. "Open! Well, that's luck," and as he he pushed back the portal, although it seemed about to fall, rather than swing on the hinges.
 
The door opened, but no one attempted to enter the house. Nat looked in gingerly, but the girls drew back to the shadow of a post, fearing evidently some response to the intrusion.
 
"Oh, come on," suggested Tom. "Nobody's in here, and it's better, a good sight, than being out in the storm."
 
Nat followed Tom's lead, and soon both young men had disappeared within the old .
 
The girls waited almost breathless—there was something so uncanny about the place. But presently boyish shouts and merry calls from within assured them that no trouble had been encountered, and it was Dorothy who proposed that they follow and seek refuge from the winds, that found the girls' ears and noses, in spite of the shelter of the old porch and the protection of furs and wraps.
 
"Come on," suggested Dorothy. "Everything must be a............