It was Marjorie’s turn to work in the afternoon the following day, so she to sleep late in the morning, in order to rest from the excitement of the previous day. Not desiring any breakfast, she was still in bed at ten o’clock when Marie Louise burst into her room with a startling piece of news.  
“Marj!” she cried, breathlessly, “your little dog is dead!”
 
“What little dog?” demanded Marjorie, forgetting the stray animal that had come to the tea-house with the stranger.
 
“That little dog you fed yesterday, and allowed to sleep in the garage!”
 
“What’s that?” asked Marjorie, recalling the creature . “Tell me about it.”
 
Marie Louise sat down on the bed and made a great effort to speak calmly.
 
“Well, you know Lily and Florence and I were scheduled to be down at the tea-house this morning to make sandwiches, and Lily decided to go get the car at the garage. While she was waiting for the man to finish washing it, a dog came in, and that reminded her of the little stray one that came to you yesterday.”
 
“Yes—yes—go on!” urged Marjorie. “It wasn’t the same dog, was it?”
 
“Oh, no indeed! But she told us the story of the old man, and the dog he picked up, and his tale about the horse.”
 
“I’m glad she told you before you got to the tea-house where Anna could hear!” remarked Marjorie. “If you girls scare her away with all this rubbish—”
 
“But it isn’t rubbish, Marjorie!” interrupted Marie Louise. “When we got to the tea-house, Lily suggested that we go out to the garage just for fun to see whether the dog was still there—or whether anything had happened to him. And, as I said before, we found him dead!”
 
“Really?” asked Marjorie, incredulously. “Had he been shot, or hurt in any way?”
 
“No, we looked closely, and we couldn’t find a single mark on his body. He must have died of heart failure!”
 
“Poor little fellow!” murmured Marjorie. “Well, I’m glad he got one good square meal before he died.”
 
“Marj,” asked Marie Louise in surprise, “aren’t you concerned with the reason for his death?”
 
“I can pretty well guess it,” replied the other, lightly. “He probably was starving when he came to us yesterday, and then all that food was just about too much for his stomach—all at once. We ought to have had better sense, and fed him more gradually. But he seemed to enjoy it so!”
 
“Marj, look me straight in the eyes and tell me you don’t believe there was any other reason for his death!”
 
Marjorie smilingly ; she really was sincere in her refusal to attach any significance to the incident.
 
“I honestly don’t believe one word of all that supernatural stuff!” she said, with assurance. “Now—what did you do with the dog?”
 
“Left him there, of course. Wouldn’t one of the boys come and bury him?”
 
“Yes, I guess could run over during his noon hour, if I phoned him. But tell me, Marie Louise, how much of this does Anna know?”
 
“Not a single word of it! We knew that you would be anxious to keep it from her, so we didn’t say a thing about the ghost story. Of course she knows the little dog is dead.”
 
“Naturally,” observed Marjorie.
 
Sleep was out of the question now, so, after persuading Marie Louise to return to her work at the tea-house, Marjorie thoughtfully began to dress. She did not for one moment share the other girl’s fears in regard to the little creature’s death, but she could not help wondering at the coincidence. It was too bad, she thought, that it had to happen, for it would make Lily and Marie Louise and all of the timid girls more timid. She longed to make some experiment, to prove to them that there was nothing to it, and yet she did not know what to do. For obvious other reasons it would not be safe for her to stay there alone all night—in a house so near a public highway, where passed by with such frequency. And yet she knew of no other way to prove the harmlessness of the place to the girls.
 
At the end of that day—a day more successful in every way than the preceding one,—she talked the matter over with John Hadley, and decided to do nothing at all. He was naturally of the same opinion as she was, that the thing was merely one of those strange coincidences which so often occur, and did not consider it worth any notice. The affair would blow over more quickly, he said, if ignored; in the busy days that the girls had before them, they would not have time to worry over such silly matters. And so the thing was dropped—for the time being.
 
By the time that two weeks had passed, each day bringing more and more patrons to the tea-house, and thus demanding more work from the girls, most of them had forgotten the little incident of the dog’s death, and the stories which were associated with the place. On one occasion, several of the girls drove there with John Hadley after dark, but they found the house exactly like other houses, and laughed at their former . Had it not been for Anna, who came to Marjorie one day with a request, the matter might have been dropped for the rest of the summer.
 
It was one morning in the first week of July that Marjorie, coming to the tea-house early, found the girl busily mixing one of those cakes for which they had already become famous. She looked up smilingly as she saw Marjorie enter the kitchen alone.
 
“Good morning, Miss Wilkinson,” she said, cheerily. “I am glad to see you by yourself, because I want to ask you a favor. Could our crowd of girls have the loan of this house next Saturday night for a party for our friends? Of course we’d clean up afterwards, and not disturb anything.”
 
Marjorie hesitated a moment, in doubt as to the right thing to do. It was not that she did not want Anna to use the house—there was no reason in the world why her faithful service should not be rewarded—but she wondered whether an evening affair of this sort would look well for the tea-house. People were so critical; they might not believe that the party was an innocent one.
 
“Would you have a chaperone or two, Anna?” she asked.
 
“Oh, yes, of course—if you wanted us to. My aunt was coming anyhow, and perhaps Mrs. Munsen would help us out.”
 
“I’m sure she would,” said Marjorie. “All right, then, I’m willing. But we couldn’t very well close the tea-house early that evening—Saturday night’s a rather important one, you know.”
 
“Oh, there will be plenty of time!” said Anna. “We wouldn’t want to start the party before nine o’clock—or even half-past. Thanks so much, Miss Wilkinson.”
 
When Marjorie related the incident at lunch time, it instantly brought to the girls’ minds the stories connected with the tea-house.
 
“Maybe we’ll find out whether there’s anything to them,” remarked Lily.
 
“No, we can’t, either!” said Marie Louise. “Because, don’t you remember, it’s early morning—just before dawn—when the ghost is supposed to walk. And the party will be over before then.”
 
“Let us ............