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The autumn of that year ended, the winter months came and went with all their holiday festivities, and spring entered in her appointed time. The passing winter had been filled with such varied outside activities for the two girls, that there was little time to think of the Boarded-up House, and still less to do any further investigating within it.
A little green garden adjoins the Giardinetto Infantile and next is a boarded-up dolls' house, and next the Miani or Palazzo Coletti, with two busts on it, and then the lovely Ca' d'Oro, that exquisite riot of Gothic richness. The history of the Ca' d'Oro or golden house, so called from the prevalence of gold in its ornamentation is melancholy.
They sat with him quite a long while, when, after many coercive glances between the deacon and the minister, the latter had finally arisen and made the request, in a trembling, embarrassed voice. Charlotte led them at once into the unfinished front parlor, with its boarded-up windows. Barney heard her open the front door to give them light and air. He sat still and waited, breathing hard.
Over the lawn and through an opening in the picket-fence of the Boarded-up House sped Goliath, his enemy yapping at his heels, and into the tangled thicket of bushes about the nearer wing. Into the bushes also plunged Bates' pup, and there ensued the sound of sundry baffled yelps. Then, after a moment, Bates's pup emerged, one ear comically cocked, and ambled away in search of other entertainment.
After witnessing the strange actions of the group of natives as they clustered in about the boarded-up house, with wildly beating hearts Lucile and Marian took their places back a little in the shadows, where they could not be seen but could still watch the wild antics of their strange visitors. "What does it mean?" whispered Marian. "I can't even guess," Lucile whispered back.
He paused, looked around him, hoping that when his eyes got used to the darkness some faint ray of light coming either through the boarded-up front or through the glass upper half of the door, would enable him to take his bearings, or, at any rate, to help him avoid that uncanny "something" in the middle of the floor. But the blackness was absolute.
The miniature was taken out of the locket on purpose, to destroy it! The miniature was of the same person whose picture is turned to the wall down-stairs!" "Cynthia, what's your theory about the mystery of the Boarded-up House?" The two girls were sitting in a favorite nook of theirs under an old, bent apple-tree in the yard back of the Boarded-up House, on a sunny morning a week later.
A few steps brought them to the point at which they must turn aside to reach either entrance. Before them rose the old boarded-up, dismal doorway, weather-beaten, stained, repellent as bitterness. There was another fateful pause.
Then all she could find to say was: "Now tell me!" But Joyce was very serious, and very mysterious too. "Not here," she answered. "I couldn't! Wait!" "Well, where and when, then?" cried Cynthia. "Home," said Joyce. Then, after a moment, "No, I'll tell you in the Boarded-up House! That's the most appropriate place. We'll go there straight after we get home."
And here they arrived at the boarded-up gate, where further view was impossible, and from which onwards the lands ceased to join. "Good-by!" they called to one another, even Arabella Clinker joining in the chorus, while Cora Lutworth ran back to say: "Some day we'll meet outside the Styx. Let us get Mr. Derringham to manage it!" And Halcyone cried a glad "Oh, yes!" "What a darling!
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