mped me to go," said Bubble, simply, "so o' course I went.
Most of the boys dassent. And it ain't bad, after the fust time. They do
say it's haunted; but I ain't never seed nothin'."

"Haunted!" cried Hilda, drawing back still farther from the black
opening. "By--by what, Bubble?"

"Cap'n's ghost!" replied the boy. "He used to go rooklin' round in there
when he was alive, folks say, and some thinks his sperit haunts there
now."

"Oh, nonsense!" said Hildegarde, with a laugh which did not sound quite
natural. "Of course you don't believe any such foolishness as that,
Bubble. But what did the old--old gentleman--want there when he was
alive? I can't imagine any one going in there for pleasure."

"Dunno, I'm sure!" replied Bubble. "Father, he come down here one day,
after blackberries, when he was a boy. He hearn a noise in there, an'
went an' peeked in, an' there was the ol' Cap'n pokin' about with his
big stick in the dirt. He looked up an' saw father, an' came at him with
his stick up, roarin' like a mad bull, father said. An' he cut an' run,
father did, an' he hearn the ol' Cap'n laughin' after him as if he'd
have a fit. Crazy as a loon, I reckon the Cap'n was, though none of his
folks thought so, Ma says."

He let the wild briers fly back about the gloomy opening, and they
stepped back on the smooth greensward again. Ah, how bright and warm the
sunshine was, after that horrible black pit! Hilda shivered again at the
thought of it, and then laughed at her own cowardice. She turned and
gazed at the waterfall, creaming and curling over the rocks, and making
such a merry, musical jest of its tumble into the pool. "Oh, lovely,
lovely!" she cried, kissing her hand to it. "Bubble, do you know that
Hartley's Glen is without exception the most beautiful place in the
world?"

"No, miss! Be it really?" asked Zerubbabel, seriously. "I allays thought
'twas kind of a sightly gully, but I didn't know't was all that."

"Well, it is," said Hilda. "It is all that, and more; and I love it! But
now, Bubble," she added, "we must make haste, for the farmer will be
wanting you, and I have a dozen things to do before tea."

"Yes, miss," said Bubble, but without his usual alacrity.

Hilda saw a look of disappointment in his honest blue eyes, and asked
what was the matter. "I ain't had my ballid!" said Zerubbabel, sadly.

"Why, you poor lad, so you haven't!" said Hildegarde. "But you shall
have it; I will tell it to you as we walk b