Two girls and a mystery : or, The old house in the glen by May Hollis Barton
"Two girls and a mystery" by May Hollis Barton is a juvenile mystery novel written in the early 20th century. When cheerful Barbara “Bab” Winters inherits a dilapidated house from her eccentric Uncle Jeremiah, a cryptic codicil, a “lucky” ring, and tales of strange lights and footsteps draw her—and her daring friend Gerry—into a treasure-tinged quest. Joined by Gordon, Charlie, the quiet chaperon Mrs. Fenwick, and devoted cook Rosa Lee, Bab’s hunt
blends spirited fun with eerie hints and a possibly related local kidnaping. The opening of the story finds Bab overhearing her grandparents’ money troubles and vowing to help, only to receive a lawyer’s letter: her great-uncle Jeremiah Dare has left her $500, an old house in a wooded glen, and a puzzling hint that its “treasure” will reveal itself to the courageous. A near-crash ride with Gordon and cousin Charlie coincides with a glimpse of a terrified girl in another car; soon newspapers report the abduction of a Barbara Winthrop who looks strikingly like Bab. Despite a lawyer’s warning about ghostly lights and pattering sounds, the group travels to the village of Clayton; on the way to the house they see a ragged boy beg for help before a dark, turbaned man seizes him and vanishes. At the gloomy, neglected house they begin exploring; thunder gathers, and in the library the girls hear unmistakable tiny, running footsteps and feel a cold, musty draft—an unsettling first brush with the mystery. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Read or download for free
For an overview of the different reading options, see our Reading Guide
| Reading Options | Url | Size | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read now! | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77221.html.images | 285 kB | |||
| EPUB3 (E-readers incl. Send-to-Kindle) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77221.epub3.images | 645 kB | |||
| EPUB (older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77221.epub.images | 643 kB | |||
| EPUB (no images, older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77221.epub.noimages | 290 kB | |||
| Kindle | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77221.kf8.images | 1.3 MB | |||
| older Kindles | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77221.kindle.images | 1.1 MB | |||
| Plain Text UTF-8 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77221.txt.utf-8 | 246 kB | |||
| Download HTML (zip) | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/77221/pg77221-h.zip | 1.2 MB | |||
| There may be more files related to this item. | |||||
Similar Books
About this eBook
| Author | Barton, May Hollis |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Townsend, Ernest N. (Ernest Nathaniel), 1893-1945 |
| LoC No. | 28016178 |
| Title | Two girls and a mystery : or, The old house in the glen |
| Original Publication | New York: Cupples & Leon Company, 1928. |
| Series Title | The Barton books for girls ; 8 |
| Credits | Susan E., David E. Brown, Chris Corrigan, Rod Crawford, Mary Fahnestock-Thomas, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres |
| Subject | Kidnapping -- Juvenile fiction |
| Subject | Young women -- Juvenile fiction |
| Subject | Mystery and detective stories |
| Subject | Poverty -- Juvenile fiction |
| Subject | Wills -- Juvenile fiction |
| Subject | Haunted houses -- Juvenile fiction |
| Subject | Scarsdale (N.Y.) -- Juvenile fiction |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 77221 |
| Release Date | Nov 11, 2025 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 359 downloads in the last 30 days. |
| Project Gutenberg eBooks are always free! | |