.

"Yes," agreed Russ. "We'll have lots of fun, and we'll hunt around and
find----"

Rose gave her brother a queer look and cried:

"That's a secret!"

"Oh, yes, so it is! That's a secret!" agreed Russ.

"What's a secret?" asked Vi, not too sleepy to put a question, if it was
the last thing she did that day.

"Oh, we can't tell!" laughed Russ. "Wait until we all get to Great
Hedge, and then we'll all hunt for it."

"Hunt for the secret?" asked Vi.

"Yes," answered Rose.

"Mother, Russ and Rose have a secret and they won't tell me!" exclaimed
the little questioning girl. "Please make 'em!"

"Not to-night, my dear," said Mrs. Bunker. "Besides, if it is their
secret it wouldn't be fair for you to know."

"But I want to, Mother!"

"We're not going to tell!" exclaimed Russ.

"Come now! Go to bed, all of you!" cried Daddy Bunker. "You'll have
plenty of fun, and secrets, too, if you go to Great Hedge."

"Oh, then we must be going!" cried Rose, and Vi was so excited about
this that she forgot to ask any more about the secret.

Mrs. Bunker thought it was only some little joke between her two older
children. If she had known what they had heard out on the porch that
afternoon she might have talked to them before they went to sleep. But
Russ and Rose hid in their hearts what they had heard about the ghost of
Great Hedge.

It was fully decided on the next day that the six little Bunkers and
Daddy and Mother would go, shortly, with Grandpa Ford to his big estate
in the country, just outside of Tarrington, in New York state. Russ and
Rose listened carefully to see if they could hear any more about the
ghost, but neither Mr. Ford nor Mr. Bunker mentioned it. And Mother
Bunker was so busy, with Norah, getting the things ready for another
trip, that she did not speak of it, either.

"My!" exclaimed Norah, as she helped sort out the clean clothes, "these
six little Bunkers are getting to be great travelers. First they go to
Grandma Bell's, then to Aunt Jo's and then to Cousin Tom's, and now to
Grandpa Ford's. I wonder where they'll go next?"

"There's no telling," said Mrs. Bunker. "But we must take plenty of warm
clothes along for them this time, as it will soon be cold weather and
winter."

"I love to be in the country in the winter," said Rose, who was helping
her mother. "You can have such fun snowballing."

"And making snow men and snow forts," added Russ, who came in to get a
piece of string for something