positively ill, and as for
Dawkins, they say she had completely collapsed and lies on her chair
moaning all the time."

"Oh, oh! How dreadful! And how sorry I am! I never dreamed; oh! dear
Miss Muriel, do believe me--listen, listen!"

The lady sat down on a trunk and drew the girl to her. Her only
feeling now was one of intensest gratitude, but she remembered how all
the others had shared her anxiety and bade her recovered pupil tell
the story so that all might hear. It was very simple, as has been
seen, and needs no repetition here, ending with the heartfelt
declaration:

"That cures me of playing detective ever again! I was so anxious to
stop all that silly talk about evil spirits and after all the only
such around Oak Knowe was Baal!"

"But how Baal, and why? And most of all how came he here in the
house?" demanded Miss Tross-Kingdon, looking from one to another;
until her eye was arrested by the expression of Jack, the boot-boy's
face. That was so funny she smiled, seeing it, and asked him:

"Can't you explain this, Jack?"

"Uh--er--Ah! Wull--wull, yes, Ma'am, I allow 't I might. I mean 't I
can. Er--sho!--Course, I'll have to. Wull--wull--You see, Miss Lady
Principal, how as last summer, after school was took in, I hired
myself out to work for old John Gilpin an' he had a goat. Dame didn't
hanker for it no great; said it et up things an' got into places where
'twarn't wanted and she adwised him, that is to say she told him, how
't he must get rid of it. He got rid of it onto me. I hadn't got
nobody belongin' and we've been first rate friends, Baal and me."

This was evidenced by the quietude of the animal, now lying at the
boot-boy's feet in affectionate confidence, and refreshing itself with
a nap, after its hilarious exercise.

"Strange that we didn't know he was on our grounds, for I did not.
Where have you kept him, Jack, and how?"

The lad flushed and fidgetted but dared not refuse to reply. He had
been too long under the authority of Miss Tross-Kingdon for that, to
whose good offices his mother had left him when she died.

"Wull--Wull--"

"Kindly stop 'wulling' and reply. It is nearly lunch time and Dorothy
has had no breakfast."

"Yes, Miss Muriel, please but I have. When I waked up after I'd slept
so long it was real light, so I went poking around to see if I could
find another door that would open, or any way out; and I came to a
queer place away yonder at the end; and I heard the funniest