ar you," Mollie
concluded.

"Thank you, Miss Billette. So you are going on an auto cruise; eh?"

"A tour, yes."

"Then that may fit in with what I have called about," said Mr. Lagg,
quickly. "Yes, it may be just the very best idea yet. Excuse me a moment
while I think," he said, and he closed his eyes. His head nodded two or
three times in a satisfied sort of way, and occasionally he murmured to
himself. The girls looked at one another, unable to fathom the meaning
of this conduct. Then Mr. Lagg whistled and suddenly exclaimed:

"I have it! You can solve this mystery, too!"

"Another mystery?" queried Grace, rather languidly, as she took a more
comfortable position on the divan. "We seem to be having a monopoly of
them."

"What is it, Mr. Lagg?" asked Mollie.

"Were you much afraid of that ghost on Elm Island?" he replied, by
asking another question.

"Not at all!" declared Betty, quickly.

"Especially as it was only--what it was," said Grace, with a laugh.

"Then I've got another one for you to solve," went on the poetical
grocer. "It's a haunted house!"

He beamed on the girls as though he had proposed the most delightful
sort of an affair.

"A--a haunted house!" faltered Amy.

"That's it--a regular haunted house--groans, slamming doors--queer
lights, and all that sort of thing."

"Where--where is it?" asked Betty.

"In Shadow Valley."

Instinctively the four girls started.

"Why, we--we were near there the other day," said Mollie. "We didn't see
any house that appeared to be haunted, though."

"No, and that's just it," went on Mr. Lagg. "You see it's only recently
been haunted, and that makes it all the worse."

"Tell us about it," suggested Betty. "Girls, this is getting
interesting. We must take this in on our tour."

"Don't!" pleaded Amy, the timid one, shivering in spite of herself.

"You know that old mansion, at the far end of the valley; don't you?"
asked Mr. Lagg. "At least, you must have heard about it."

"You mean Kenyon's Folly?" responded Mollie, who began to have a
glimmering of what was meant.

"Yes," answered the storekeeper. "Mr. Kenyon, who was once a
millionaire, built that mansion after ideas of his own. Everyone said
Shadow Valley--at least that part of it--was too gloomy and out of the
way to be a good place for a mansion like that, and the folks around
here said it was foolish. They called it Kenyon's Folly from the start,
though he named it Kenyon's Woodland Lodge