"Just a figure sitting here on the bank," answered Ruth.

"Oh!" he exclaimed in a tone of evident relief.

"Why, Major," cried Miss Sallie, "one would think you believed in ghosts."

"And so I do, Sallie, my dear," declared the gentle old major, "but only in the ghosts of my lost youth, which seem to appear to me to-day in the forms of all these delightful young people. What about tea, Miss Ruth Stuart?" he demanded, turning to Ruth.

The chauffeur brought out the elaborate tea basket which had served them so well at the Gypsy camp and Ruth and Barbara proceeded to make the tea while the other girls unpacked boxes of delicious sandwiches and tea cakes.

"This is a very beautiful spot," observed Jose. "If it were perpetual summer I could live and die on this mossy bank and never tire of it!"

Walking a little apart from the others he stretched himself out at full length on the ground, staring up into the branches overhead.

Then the other boys, who had been strolling about under the trees, returned, but they were not alone. They had espied Zerlina in the depths of the woods, with her guitar slung over her shoulder, and persuaded her to go back with them to the pool.

"You see we've brought a wandering minstrel with us," cried Jimmie. "She has promised to sing us a song of the Romany Rye, haven't you, Zerlina?"

The girls greeted Zerlina cordially. She was presented to the major, but Jose, as she approached, had turned over on his side and flung his arm over his head, as if he were asleep.

"Leave him alone. He's dreaming," said Jimmie. "Give Zerlina some tea and cake, and then we'll have a song."

Zerlina ate the cake greedily and drank her tea in silence. She examined the fresh summer dresses of "The Automobile Girls," and a look of envy came into her eyes as she cast them down on her cotton skirt full of tatters from the briars and faded from red into a soft old pink shade.

But she was very pretty, even in her ragged dress, which was turned in at the collar showing her full, rounded throat and shapely neck. She was lithe and graceful, and as she thrummed on the guitar with her slender, brown fingers her ragged dress and rough shoes faded into insignificance. The group of people sitting on the bank saw only a beautiful, dark-haired girl with a glowing face and eyes that shone with a smouldering fire. After a few preliminary chords she began to sing in a rich contralto voice. The song again was in the Romany tongue. It seemed to convey to the listeners a note of sadness and loneliness.

The kind old major was much impressed by the performance.

"Zerlina," he said, "you have a very beautiful voice, much too beautiful to be wasted. You must ask your grandmother to bring you over to Ten Eyck Hall. I should like to hear you sing again."

"Zerlina will be a great opera singer, one of these days," predicted Jimmie. "She will be singing Carmen, yet, at the Manhattan Opera House.

How would you like that, Zerlina?"

The Gypsy girl made no reply. Her eyes were fastened on Jose, who still lay as if asleep, his back turned to the circle.

"She can dance, too," cried Ruth. "She told me she could. This would be a pretty place to dance, Zerlina, where the fairies dance by moonlight."

"I have no music," objected Zerlina.

"Oh, I can make the music all right," said the irrepressible Jimmie, seizing the guitar and tuning it up. Then he began to whistle. The tone was clear and flute-like and the tune the same Spanish dance he had played for Jose. Zerlina p.r.i.c.ked up her ears when she heard the music and the rhythm of the guitar. It is said that no Gypsy can ever resist the sound of music. Now the body of the girl began swaying to the beat of the accompaniment. Presently she began to dance, a real Spanish dance full of gestures and movement. They half guessed the story woven in, a lover repelled and called back, coquetted with and threatened; threatened with a knife which she drew from the blouse of her dress and then restored to its hiding place; for the dance ended quickly without disaster, imaginary or otherwise. Miss Sallie had given a little cry at sight of another murderous weapon. But the knife! Had no one seen it, no one recognized the chased silver handle and the slightly curved blade?

Bab sat as if rooted to the spot, waiting for somebody to speak, to cry out that the knife was the same that had whizzed past Jose's head the other night. After all, n.o.body had really seen it but herself. She had learned by a former experience to keep her own counsel, and she decided to wait, and not to tell until matters took a more definite turn.

Was it possible this beautiful Gypsy girl could be a murderess, or one at heart? But, on the other hand, would she have dared to display the mysterious dagger in the presence of the same company? Bab was puzzled and worried. Was Zerlina a robber also, or was Jose, after all, the robber? Perhaps there was some connection between them. There must be, since they had exchanged knives on several occasions.

Her reflections were interrupted by a general movement toward the automobiles. Zerlina was evidently pleased at the praises she had received, for her cheeks were flushed with pride.

"Won't you let us see your dagger, Zerlina?" asked Bab.

"Oh, yes, do!" begged Mollie. "It will be the third dagger we have seen this week; but this is the first chance we have had to take a good look at any of them."

Zerlina looked at them darkly. Her lips drew themselves together in a stubborn line.

"I cannot, now," she said. "Perhaps, another time. Good-bye." She slipped off into the woods as quietly as one of the spirits which were said to haunt the place.

"Gypsies are so tiresome," exclaimed Miss Sallie. "Why shouldn't she show her dagger, I'd like to know? And who cares whether she does or not, anyhow?"

"If you had ever read any books on Gypsies, Sallie," replied the major, "you would know that their lives are full of things they must keep secret if they want to keep out of jail. However, these Gypsies seem peaceable enough," he added, his kindly spirit never liking to condemn anything until it was necessary. "But what a beautiful girl she is!" he continued. "If she were properly dressed she would be as n.o.ble and elegant looking as"-he paused for a comparison-"as our own young ladies here. I wonder if her grandmother would ever consent to her being educated and taught singing?"

"Now, Major," cried the impetuous Ruth, "keep on your own preserves! I asked her first, and I'm just dying to do it. I know papa would let me, and wouldn't it be a beautiful thing to launch a great singer upon the public?"

"It certainly would, my dear," replied the major, "and I promise not to meddle, if you had first choice."

"Why, where's Mr. Martinez?" asked Mollie, as they climbed into the automobiles and she missed her companion of the ride over.

One of the boys gave a shrill whistle and the others began calling and shouting. Presently the answer came from up the stream. "I'm coming," he called and Jose appeared. "I was only taking a little stroll."

"Why did you wish to miss the Gypsy song and dance?" demanded Mollie.

"It was charming."

"Pardon, Mademoiselle," he replied, stiffly, "but I do not care to hear the songs of my country, or to see its dances in a foreign land."

Mollie was a little piqued by Jose's short answer, but she forgave him when he said sadly:

"Did you ever know, Madamoiselle, what it is to be homesick?"

"But I thought you said you liked America?" she persisted.

"So I do," he replied; "nevertheless, there are times when I feel very lonely. You will forgive me, will you not. Was I rude?"

In the meantime Stephen said to Barbara:

"Bab, are you a good walker? How would you like to take a short cut through the woods to-morrow morning, and visit the hermit who lives on the other side? We can't ride or drive very well, because it is too far by the road, but it is only about five miles when we walk. I haven't been there for several years, but I know the way well. I suppose the hermit is still alive. At least, he was all right last summer, so John the butler told me. Anybody else who wishes may go along, but n.o.body shall come who will lag behind and complain of the distance."

"I am good for a ten mile walk," replied Barbara. "I have done it many a time at home."

"The woods grow more and more interesting the deeper you go into them,"

continued Stephen. "There are places where the sun never comes through, and the whole way is cool and shaded. It is full of people, too. You would be surprised to find how many people make a living in a forest.

They are perfectly harmless, of course, or else I wouldn't be taking you among them. Besides the Gypsies, there are woodcutters, old men and women who gather herbs, and a few lonely people who live in cabins on the edge of the forest and have little gardens. Uncle has always helped them, in the winter, without asking who they were or why they were there. Then there's the hermit. He is the most interesting of the lot.

He is as old as the hills and he has a secret that he would never tell, the secret of who he is and why he has lived alone for some forty years."

"How interesting!" exclaimed Bab. "I hope Miss Sallie won't object."

"We shall have to get the major on our side," replied Stephen, "and perhaps win her over, too."

"Oh, she is not really so strict," replied Bab, "but she feels the responsibility of looking after other peoples' children, she says."

"Here we are," said Stephen, as the cars stopped at Ten Eyck Hall.

CHAPTER XIV-IN THE DEEP WOODS