"I asked her about that," spoke the clerk, "and she said it did not
matter. So I did not insist."
"Carrie Norton," mused Mollie, as the girls went into the dining room.
"Well, I hope she has found her friends. Poor girl!"
They talked and speculated about her, but that was all they could do.
They could arrive at no conclusion. It was plain that she had not been
as badly hurt as they had feared, and, after leaving the farm house,
must have gone to some other place of shelter. She must have also
changed her garments, for the dress the maid described was not the one
she wore at the time of the accident.
She had left the hotel, after stopping there one night, the maid said,
and had left no directions for any mail to be forwarded, nor had she
given any clue to where she was going.
"She seems to have come into our lives in a most mysterious way," said
Mollie, "and then to have vanished. We get a glimpse of her, as it were,
and again she vanishes. I wonder if we will ever solve the mystery?"
"Perhaps she is--the ghost of the haunted mansion of Shadow Valley,"
suggested Betty.
"What an idea!" cried Grace. "Don't be so--shivery!"
"Well, she is as mysterious as ghosts are supposed to be," Betty went
on. "I wonder when we will meet her again?"
"When we do, we must take care that she does not escape without telling
us more about herself," said Amy.
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