ery foot of a burying-ground!"

Hanny held tight to Joe's hand. She was beginning to have what Miss
Cynthia called the "creeps."

CHAPTER XIII

OUT-OF-THE-WAY CORNERS

If the outside was gloomy, it had a queer, disorderly, and rather
cheerful aspect within, for the sun was pouring a flood of gold in one
window where it happened to strike a spot between two trees. And Frank
Forrester was by no means melancholy to-day. He shook hands cordially
with Mr. Whitney, and welcomed the rest of the party with the utmost
affability,--a fine-looking Englishman with a picturesque air, due
largely to his rather long hair, which fell about his forehead and neck
in a tumbled manner, suggesting a tendency to curls.

"These young people may like to look over my curiosities, while we have
our talk," he said. "Take a cigar, and I'll bring a bottle of wine.
Won't you join us, Doctor? Here, young folks, are curiosities from
everywhere."

He ushered them into a small room that was library and everything by
turns. There were trophies of hunting expeditions, some rare birds
stuffed and mounted, looking so alive Hanny would not have been
surprised if they had suddenly begun to warble; books in every stage of
dilapidation, some of them quite rare copies, Ben found; portfolios of
old engravings; curious weapons; foreign wraps; Grecian and Turkish bits
of pottery; and the odd things we call bric-a-brac nowadays.

Delia began to make some notes. Ben laughed a little. Interviewing was
not such a fine art then; and people were considered greater subjects of
interest than their belongings. But Delia was saving up things for
stories which she meant to write as she found time.

Doctor Joe had come in here with the young people, leaving the two
friends to discuss their business. He, too, found much to interest him;
and he was amused at Delia's running comments, some of them very bright
indeed. She was quite a spur to Ben, he found; and he was surprised at
the varied stock of knowledge Ben had accumulated.

It did not seem as if they had explored half, when Mr. Whitney opened
the door.

"Young folks, we must be going, if we expect to reach home that very
same night, like the old woman with her pig," he said.

"Are you talked out?" asked Delia, archly; "for we haven't half looked
through things."

"I want your brother to stay and have some supper with me. I'm my own
housekeeper now; but I think we could manage."

"What fun it would b