"I'm sure," said Mabel, "aunt would much rather never see me
again than see me like this. She'd never get over it; it might kill her
she has spasms as it is. I'll write to her, and we'll put it in the big
letter-box at the gate as we go out. Has anyone got a bit of pencil
and a scrap of paper?"

Gerald had a note-book, with leaves of the shiny kind which you
have to write on, not with a blacklead pencil, but with an ivory
thing with a point of real lead. And it won't write on any other
paper except the kind that is in the book, and this is often very
annoying when you are in a hurry. Then was seen the strange
spectacle of a little ivory stick, with a leaden point, standing up at
an odd, impossible-looking slant, and moving along all by itself as
ordinary pencils do when you are writing with them

"May we look over?" asked Kathleen.

There was no answer. The pencil went on writing.

"Mayn't we look over?" Kathleen said again."

Of course you may!" said the voice near the paper. "I nodded,
didn't I? Oh, I forgot, my nodding's invisible too."T

he pencil was forming round, clear letters on the page torn out of
the note-book. This is what it wrote:

"DEAR AUNT, I am afraid you will not see me again for some
time. A lady in a motor-car has adopted me, and we are going
straight to the coast and then in a ship. It is useless to try to follow