she
wrapped herself in the voluminous folds of a water-proof cape and took
down a huge, dark-green cotton umbrella from its accustomed nail behind
the kitchen door.

"Miss Grace do be crazy to be goin' out this night. It's rheumatics I
shall have to-morrow in all me bones," she growled.

She plodded along at Grace's side with such an injured expression that
Grace felt like laughing outright at the picture of offended dignity
that she presented.

Grace chatted gayly as they proceeded and Bridget answered her sallies
with grunts and monosyllables. When they reached the turn of the road
Grace said:

"Bridget, let's take the short cut. The walking is good and we'll save
ten minutes' time by doing it."

"Phast that haunted house?" gasped Bridget. "Niver! May the saints
presarve us from hants."

"Nonsense," laughed Grace. "There are no such things as ghosts, and you
know it. If you're afraid you can go back and wait at your cousin's for
me. She lives near here, doesn't she?"

"I will that," replied Bridget fervently, "but don't ye be too long
gone, Miss Grace."

"I won't stay long," promised Grace, and hurried down the road, leaving
Bridget to proceed with much grumbling to her cousin's house.

The house that Bridget had so flatly refused to pass was a two-story
affair of brick that set well back from the highway. There were rumors
afloat that a murder had once been committed there, and that the
apparition of the victim, an old man, walked about at night moaning in
true ghost fashion.

To be sure no one had as yet been found who had really seen the spectre
old man, nevertheless the place kept its ghost reputation and was
generally avoided.

Grace, who was nothing if not daring, never lost an opportunity to pass
the old house, and jeered openly when any one talked seriously of the
"ghost."

Now, she smiled to herself as she rapidly neared the house, at Bridget's
evident fear of the supernatural.

"What a goose Bridget is," she murmured. "Just as though there
were----" She stopped abruptly and stared in wonder at the old house.
On the side away from the road was a small wing, and through one of the
windows of this wing gleamed a tiny point of light.

"A light," she said aloud in surprise. "How strange. The ghost must be
at home. Perhaps I was mistaken. No, there it is again. Ghost or no
ghost, I'm going to see what it is."

Suiting the action to the words, Grace stole softly up the deserted walk
and crouc