im have the place so cheaply. Mr. Peabody
was a bachelor, so he asked two friends, Captain Smith and his wife, to
occupy the house with him for the summer."

"Oh, trot out your ghosts, Harry. We are getting impatient," interposed
Jack Bolling.

"The first day that Mrs. Smith was alone in the house," continued Harry,
"she was in the sitting room with the door open when a fragile old lady
passed right through the hall. She disappeared into space. That very
same night, just at midnight, when Mr. Peabody, Captain Smith and his
wife were in the library, they heard the fall of a heavy body upstairs
on the second floor. Captain Smith and Mr. Peabody rushed up the steps
just in time to see an old man, leading a young girl by the hand, enter
a room where the door was locked. When they got the door unfastened
there was no one in the room."

"Harry, don't go on with that horrible tale," entreated Lillian, looking
timidly up at the dusty windows of the old house, under whose shadow
they had taken refuge. The sun was no longer shining brightly, but the
shade was grateful to the little circle of listeners on the grass.

"Don't be such a goose, Lillian," protested Phil. "What have Harry's
Massachusetts ghosts to do with us way down here in 'ole Virginny'?"

Lillian gave a shriek. The entire company sprang to their feet,
scattering sandwiches, cakes and pickles on the grass. Inside the empty
house there had been a distinct noise. Something had fallen heavily to
the floor.

At the same instant David, who had been apart from the others, appeared
around the corner of the house.

"Whew, I am glad it was you who made that racket, Brewster!" declared
Jack Bolling, grinning rather foolishly.

The young people looked at one another with relieved expressions.

"I'm so grateful it isn't night time," sighed Eleanor.

"I didn't make any noise," declared David, seeming rather confused. No
one paid any attention to his reply. They were again clustered about
Harry Sears, begging him to go on with his ghost story.

"Things went from bad to worse in the house I was telling you about,"
continued Harry. "Every night, at the same hour, the same noise was
heard and the old man and the girl reappeared. Why, once Mr. Peabody was
sitting in his garden, just as we are doing here"--Harry glanced across
the old garden. Was it a branch that stirred behind the tangle of
evergreen bushes? The day was very still--"and he saw the same old man
walk by him