d, but you must
remember that Miss Frayne is used to encountering things far more
terrible than ghosts. She may insist on coming right in here to
investigate. Of course, if she does, I can't refuse or she'll think I
am afraid, or else that I put up a fake ghost here, myself."

"We'll lock the door with a chair," suggested Emerald.

"She'll be quite capable of breaking into a little house like this,
but I'll keep her back until you have time to haul in your ghost and
make a quick and quiet getaway by a back window. Then another thing,
she'll be over here tomorrow morning to take some pictures of the
house, so by sunrise I want you all to take up your abode in the tent
you have in the woods and stay there until I come and tell you the
coast is clear."

"We're dead on," assured Ptolemy. "I'm glad there's going to be
something doing. We're getting tired of being here alone. I had to tie
Demetrius up this morning. He was bound to go over to the hotel and
see mudder."

"Don't one of you dare to make such an attempt," I said peremptorily.
"You keep right on here for a few days. Some of us, either Rob, or
Beth and I will drop over every day. If you play your ghost just as I
tell you and keep out of sight, I'll bring you over some ice cream
tomorrow."

"Bring me a bigger bat."

"Bring me a mitt."

"Bring me a boat," came in chorus from Ptolemy, Emerald, and
Demetrius.

"What'll you give me to stay here?" asked Pythagoras, who was a born
bargain-driver.

"I'll give you a licking if you don't stay," was the only offer he
gleaned from me.

"Be good boys," adjured the softhearted Rob, "and I'll bring you
everything I can find at the hotel."

It was long past the luncheon hour when we returned. We found Miss
Frayne wondering at Rob's sudden disappearance and Beth was
accordingly mystified.

I planted myself directly in front of Miss Frayne.

"May I take you to the haunted house tonight at the yawning
churchyard hour?" I asked. "I am most eminently fitted to be your
guide, for I was the first one of this assembly to see the ghost _in
toto_."

"He saw it over a stone fence," remarked Rob.

"Indeed you may, thank you very much," she said enthusiastically.

Silvia's face was a study.

"And will you come with me, Beth?" asked Rob. "Of course, the ghost is
an old story to us, but we really should hover in Lucien's wake out of
regard to the conventions."

"Is Miss Frayne interested in ghosts?" asked Beth.

Miss