was alone with the gold and the skeleton. For the first time he
experienced a thrill of cold fear and slowly retreated up the stairs
before the hollow and, as it seemed, vindictive stare of the grinning
skeleton."

"I wonder wot he was grinnin' at?" said William.

"But to his horror the door was shut, the panel had slid back. He had
no means of opening it. He was imprisoned on a remote part of the
castle, where even the servants came but rarely, and at intervals of
weeks. Would his fate be that of the man whose bones gleamed white in
the moonlight?"

"Crumbs!" said William, earnestly.

Then a shadow fell upon the floor of the barn, and Cousin Mildred's
voice greeted him.

"So you're here, dear? I'm just exploring your garden and thinking. I
like to be alone. I see that you are the same, dear child!"

"I'm readin'," said William, with icy dignity.

"Dear boy! Won't you come and show me the garden and your favourite
nooks and corners?"

William looked at her thin, vague, amiable face, and shut his book
with a resigned sigh.

"All right," he said, laconically.

He conducted her in patient silence round the kitchen garden and the
shrubbery. She looked sadly at the house, with its red brick,
uncompromisingly-modern appearance.

"William, I wish your house was _old_," she said, sadly.

William resented any aspersions on his house from outsiders.
Personally he considered newness in a house an attraction, but, if
anyone wished for age, then old his house should be.

"_Old_!" he ejaculated. "Huh! I guess it's _old_ enough."

"Oh, is it?" she said, delighted. "Restored recently, I suppose?"

"Umph," agreed William, nodding.

"Oh, I'm so glad. I may have some psychic revelation here, then?"

"Oh yes," said William, judicially. "I shouldn't wonder."

"William, have you ever had one?"

"Well," said William, guardedly, "I dunno."

His mysterious manner threw her into a transport.

"Of course not to anyone. But to _me_--I'm one of the sympathetic! To
me you may speak freely, William."

William, feeling that his ignorance could no longer be hidden by
words, maintained a discreet silence.

"To me it shall be sacred, William. I will tell no one--not even your
parents. I believe that children see--clouds of glory and all that,"
vaguely. "With your unstained childish vision----"

"I'm eleven," put in William indignantly.

"You see things that to the wise are sealed. Some manifestation, some
spirit, some gh