Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !

Updated: June 16, 2025


The following day Cynthia was taken home. Providence and the strain and excitement saved her from serious harm, but when Marcia Lowe left her by the gate of Stoneledge there seemed to be something tragic in the fact that after such an experience, no explanations were necessary.

On the long rides to and from the factory she thought often of her poor mother and wondered about her bad father. She wished she had learned more about them while Ann Walden was capable of telling her. The time was past now when the mistress of Stoneledge could impart any reliable information to the girl.

So Sandy, from the shelter of trees back of the Stoneledge smoke-house, gave his peculiar and penetrating call. A second time he gave it and then Ivy issued forth and, cocking her weird old head on one side, listened. A long silence followed. The hot afternoon palpitated and throbbed in The Hollow, but the hidden bird did not break it by another call.

Then it was that the first wave of actual soul-loneliness enveloped the girl, and when youth recognizes such desolation something overpowers it that no older person can ever understand. And that very afternoon the great storm came that swept away so much and opened the way to more. It was four o'clock on that same day that Liza Hope passed Stoneledge on the way down to the store.

Sally Taber returned to her task with energy born of appreciation. "We'll fix the old house of Stoneledge up in great shape," Sandy said, coming back to the table and leaning forward on his hands to follow Sally's energetic manipulation of the gingerbread; "that ought to be something for the rest of us to live up to. I'd like to see little Miss Cynthia installed there as mistress!"

Having no legitimate business at the back door of Stoneledge, the boy had no intention of braving old Ivy's sombre stare or the chance meeting with the mistress of the Great House, but there were other ways of communicating with Cynthia besides the back door and the vicarious personalities of those who ruled over her.

And once, soon after her return, Marcia Lowe had ventured to call at Stoneledge, but the outcome of her visit had been so deplorable that the little doctor was driven to despair. She had knocked at the outer door, which stood ajar, and, receiving no reply, had walked into the hall and to the library. There sat Ann Walden just as Miss Lowe had left her on the fateful afternoon of the letter.

That was the summer that young Lansing Hertford came back to the old home place of his forebears to look about there was a general mess of things up to Stoneledge those days, and all I know is that Starr he went up into the hills to nurse a fever plague and there he died.

Finally he stretched his aching body upon the improvised bed and fell into a restless slumber. The hot, breathless morning followed the storm through which Sandy departed, and fell like a moist blanket over Lost Hollow. Even up at Stoneledge the vapour rose and settled depressingly. Every door and window in the livable part of the house was set wide to any chance stirring of the dead air.

"Well, Ivy, shut the west chamber off from the rest of the house. We have far too much space to care for as it is. When I reconstruct Stoneledge it will be time enough to reopen the disused rooms." Ivy bowed her head complacently. It had always been the same since the war.

Word Of The Day

ghost-tale

Others Looking