“Oh, just somebody who wants to keep quiet this morning and rest.”
Wasn’t that enough to make a person curious! Of course it was! Who? Who could it be? “Is it uncle or aunt?” she insisted. “Who’s ‘company’?”
But Mother only smiled. “You’ll find out sometime,” she said. “Not now. If I told you, you’d run right up to Mark’s room and the person who came last night felt sick and mustn’t be disturbed.”
Hump! The flowers were pushed into the paper May basket and she began to pick up the leaves and buds that had fallen on the floor. “I think you might tell me,” she begged. “I want to know who came.”
But Marjorie got no answer. She knew it wasn’t much use to continue to tease, but she resolved to find out who it was.
At school the question still pursued Marjorie. Would Mark come home and want his room and, if he did, would _he_ know who was there? After school she dashed home and burst through the back door and up the back stairs. Mark’s door was closed. There was a paper pinned upon it. It was Mother’s writing and it said, “Please don’t disturb.”
So Marjorie passed by the door. She went into Mother’s room and found Mother sewing. “Isn’t company ever going to wake up?” she asked. “Am I _never_ to know who is there?”
Dotty was home now. Dotty didn’t know who was in Mark’s room, but she wasn’t curious about things. She was occupied in cutting out paper dolls, sitting on the floor in the sun beside the window.
“What happened at luncheon?” asked Marjorie of Dotty who went to kindergarten and came home at noon. “Did anybody _talk_ in Mark’s room when Mother took up the tray? Did you hear anything?”
Deary me! Oh, dear! And the door was _closed_! Marjorie decided to walk by it again. She waited and she listened. She heard nothing at all--no, not a sound, _not a sound_! Then the telephone bell rang and she ran down to answer it. The telephone call was from Mabel. Mabel had been at school and she wanted to know if Marjorie had solved the mystery.
But Marjorie did not know. Mabel suggested that it must be Marjorie’s aunt who came from the West. “Probably that’s it,” she said. “Why don’t you make a May basket and go tie it on the door and--and say something. You could tell from the voice, if it answered you, whether it was your aunt or not.” That was a good thought. Marjorie set about making a paper May basket. She heard Mother go up the front stairs and cross to the back where Mark’s door was. Then, having made the basket, she decided to try Mabel’s suggestion. Mother went into Mark’s room, came out and went downstairs again. Marjorie waited.