"Listen!" she commanded tensely. "What's that?"

            "The cooing of a pigeon," Nancy replied. "Come along, or we'll all have the jitters."

            Just ahead stretched a long avenue of oak trees, which the girls thought might lead to the castle. They tramped through the waist-high grass and came to a vine-tangled, fern-matted bower. Two handsome stone vases lay on their sides, broken. Apparently rain water had filled them and frozen during the winter, bursting the vases.

            "What a shame this place is being neglected!" Nancy commented, pausing a moment. "Mr. Hector ought to take care of it. Surely there must be money in Mr. Heath's estate set aside for that purpose! If Juliana should come back, she would hardly recognize the place."

            At the end of the oak-lined avenue, the girls came to a weather-stained loggia of stone. Its four handsomely carved pillars rose to support a balcony over which vines trailed. Steps led to the upper part.

            After mounting to the balcony, Nancy and her friends obtained a fine view of the nearby gardens. They had been laid out in formal sections, each one bounded by a stone wall or an untrimmed hedge. Here and there were small circular pools, now heavy with lichens and moss, and fountains with leaf-filled basins. Over the treetops, about half a mile away, the girls could see two stone towers.

            "That's the castle," said George.

            Amid the wild growth, Nancy spotted a bridge.

            "Let's go that way," she suggested, starting down from the balcony.