It was broken by a sudden
thundering of the griffin's head against the great front door. The
girls' hearts seemed to leap up in their throats. They had not heard
that sound since the June day of Mrs. Gorham's visit.
"_Tom!_" ejaculated Wilma, in a terrified whisper, looking wildly
into Claribel's startled eyes. "Oh, we can't let him in! Neither of us
is fit to go down, and there isn't a spark of fire in this big barn of
a house, even in the kitchen stove."
"I can't go," announced Claribel. "I am simply covered with feathers.
It will take an hour at least to pick them off."
Wilma held up two grimy hands, and pointed to the front breadth of her
wrapper, which had been torn to ribbons on a lurking nail.
"Do you think he would recognise in either of us one of the 'charming
girls of Marchmont' that his mother painted?"
"Maybe it's only a book-agent after all," suggested Claribel,
hopefully. But the knocking sounded again, and Wilma shook her head.
"No, there was that letter to sister, you know, and it sounds just as
I've imagined Tom would knock, from what his mother told of him--so
peremptory and lordly, somehow, as if he wouldn't take no for an
answer."
"What shall we do?" groaned Claribel, desperately. "Even if we were
fit to go down, there's nothing but bread and tea for lunch.
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