nal too. I was a Gregg, Diane, until I married your uncle--he
wasn't really your uncle, but a sort of cousin--and the Greggs, thank
heavens! are mild and quiet and never wander about. Dear me, if a
Gregg should take to sleeping by a lake in spring-time under a planting
moon, I would be surprised, I would indeed! There was only one in our
whole family who ever galloped about to any extent--Uncle Peter
Gregg--and you really couldn't blame him. Bulls were perpetually
running into him, and once he fell overboard and a whale chased him to
shore. Isn't it funny? Strangest thing! But there, Diane, I wonder
your poor dear grandfather doesn't turn straight over in his grave--I
do indeed. Many and many a time your poor father tried him sorely--and
Carl's mother too." Aunt Agatha sniffed meekly.

"Will you go alone?" she ventured, wiping her eyes.

"Bless your heart, Aunt Agatha, no!" laughed Diane radiantly. "I'm
going to take old Johnny Jutes with me!"

Diane kissed her aunt lightly on the forehead.

"Well," said Aunt Agatha in melancholy resignation, "if you must turn
gypsy, my dear, and wander about the country, Johnny Jutes is the best
one to go along. He's old and faithful and used to your whims and
surely after thirty years of service, he won't break into tantrums."

Silver-sweet through the quiet house came the careless ripple of a
flute, showering light and sensuous music. There was a dare-devil lilt
and sway to the flippant strains and Aunt Agatha covered her face with
her hands.

"Oh, Diane," she whispered, shuddering, "when he plays like that he
drinks and drinks and drinks until morning."

"Poor Aunt Agatha!" said the girl pityingly. "What troublesome folk we
Westfalls are! And I no less than Carl."

"No, no, my dear!" murmured Aunt Agatha. "It's only when Carl plays
like that--that I grow afraid."

Aunt Agatha went to bed to listen tremblingly while the dare-devil
dance of the flute tripped ghostlike through the corridors. And
falling asleep with the laughing demon of wind and melody cascading
wildly through the mad scene from Lucia, she dreamt that Carl had
captured an Esquimau with his flute and weaving a suit of basket armor
for him, had dispatched him by aeroplane to lead Diane's gypsy cart
into the Everglades of Florida, the home-state of Norman Westfall until
his ill-fated marriage.

CHAPTER V

THE PHANTOM THAT ROSE FROM THE BOTTLE

The demon of the flute laughed and fell si