Books with author Carol North

The picturesque village of Sunnyside had one main road, wide, elm-shaded, which began at a beautiful hill-encircled lake, and which from there climbed gently up through the business part of town to the residential, passed the orphanage, the fine old seminary for girls and the even older academy for boys, and then led through wide-open spaces, fertile farms, other scattered villages and on to Dorchester, a large, thriving city forty miles away. Merry Lee’s father was a builder and contractor whose offices were in Dorchester, but whose home was a comfortable old colonial house on the main thoroughfare in the village of Sunnyside.The large, square library of the Lee home was warm and cheerful on that blustery, blizzardy Saturday afternoon. A log was snapping and crackling on the hearth and a big slate-colored Persian cat on the rug was purring loudly its content. A long lad, half reclining on a window seat, was reading a detective story and making notes surreptitiously now and then. At a wide front window, Merry Lee stood drumming her fingers on the pane and peering out at the whirling snow. A chiming clock announced that the hour was three. “And I told the crowd to be there by two-thirty at the latest.” Although the girl had not really been addressing him, the boy glanced up to remark: “Might as well give up, Sis. Girls wouldn’t venture out in a storm like this; they are like cats. They like to stay in where it’s warm and comfy. Hey, Muff?” The puss, upon hearing its name, opened one sleepy blue eye, looked at the boy lazily and then dozed again.Suddenly there was a peal of merry laughter. “Oh, Jack,” his sister exclaimed gayly, “do look out of the window. Did you ever before see such a funny procession?”Jack looked and beheld coming in at the front gate five maidens so covered with snow that it was impossible to tell which was which.Merry whirled to defy her brother. “Now, sir, you see girls aren’t afraid of a little blizzardly weather. I’m certainly glad they came. I’d burst if I had to keep my secret any longer.”“Secret?” Jack’s voice held a rising inflection and he looked up with interest, but Merry was on her way to open the front door that Katie, the maid, need not be summoned by the bell.A gust of wind and a flurry of flakes first entered, then, what a stamping as there was outside on the storm porch.The Seven Sleuths' Club, MISCHIEVOUS, HOUSEKEEPER, REBELLIOUS BOY, CONSPIRATORS, REPENTANCE, SNOB