sideboard. Mrs. Clarke seemed more nervous than

Penelope; she babbled nonstop. “Have a seat there by

the window, dear. The air will refresh you. You must

be starved! There’s tea at hand, but now that you’re

here I’ll bring up a tray of sandwiches in case you feel

peckish. Speaking for myself, I can’t travel more than a

half mile from home without taking some refreshment,

and here you’ve come all the way from who knows

where—”

“Heathcote. Excuse me for interrupting,” said Penel-

ope, “but what is that unusual sound?”

Mrs. Clark’s mouth slammed shut and stayed that

way for a count of three, and then flew open again to

emit another stream of even more rapid chatter. “What

sound? I’m sure I don’t hear any sound, certainly not

an ‘unusual’ sound or any other type of sound that one

wouldn’t normally expect to hear in a busy household

such as this—”

“It is an unusual sound,” said Penelope, tilting her

head to listen. “It’s coming in the windows. It has a sort

of a howling feeling to it.”

“A how—a how—!” Mrs. Clarke’s rushing river of

words suddenly went dry. At that moment a bell rang

from some distant place within the house. It was a pleas-

ant, mellow-toned bell, but even the airiest, tinkling

chime can be rung insistently and in a panic, and that

was unmistakably the type of ringing this was.

Mrs. Clarke gave a small, involuntary yelp. “Ai!

That’ll be Lady Constance. I’ll go tell her you’re

here and settled. And I’m sure I don’t hear anything

like a how—a how—well, nothing unusual, to be sure!

Here, let me close the windows, dear, so the bugs

can’t get in—”

At which point, despite the frantic ringing of the

bell and Penelope’s comment that the breeze was, in

fact, quite refreshing and that it would be a pity to

shut up windows on such a lovely autumn day, Mrs.

Clarke took pains to shutter and bolt every window in

the room.

“Would you care for some tea, Miss Lumley?”

“Thank you kindly, I would.”

Lady Constance poured the tea herself. “So per-

haps she is not completely spoiled,” thought Penelope

with relief. Lady Constance had appeared within

moments of Mrs. Clarke’s departure, quite breathless,

as if she had raced down the halls. Otherwise she was

much as Penelope had pictured her: perhaps nineteen

or twenty at the most, with blond hair the color of

butterscotch pudding and pale, circular blue eyes that