he mumps. She got panicky
when she heard of the Bishop, asked ole Doc if she could catch it. I
guess the Bishop wasn't catching! Yes, sir, the church is there, but
it's deserted."

"What is the bell ringing for?" Northrup roused, more because the
name of Mary-Clare had been introduced than because the bell
interested him.

He knew, now, that the girl in the yellow house was Mary-Clare. Her
name slipped into sound frequently, but that was all.

"Who is ringing the bell?"

Aunt Polly rolled her knitting carefully and set her glasses aslant on
the top of her head. Northrup soon learned that the angle and position
of Aunt Polly's spectacles were significant.

"No human hands are ringing the bell," she remarked quietly. "I hold
one notion, Peter another. _I_ say the _bell_ is ha'nted; calling,
calling folks, making them remember!"

"Now, Polly!" Peter knocked the ashes from his pipe on to Ginger's
back. "Don't get to criss-crossing and apple-sassing about that bell."
He turned to Northrup and winked.

"Women is curious," he admitted. "When things are flat and lacking
flavour they put in a pinch of this or that to spice them up. Fact
is--there's a change of wind and it ain't sot yet. While it's shifting
around it hits, once so often, a chink in the belfry that's got to be
mended some day. That's the sum and tee-total of Polly's ha'nted
tower."

Then, as if the question escaped without his sanction and quite to his
consternation, Northrup spoke again:

"Who lives in the yellow house by the crossroads?"

This was not honest. Northrup knew _who_. What he wanted to say, but
had not dared, was: "Tell me about her."

"I reckon you mean Mary-Clare." Aunt Polly shook a finger at Ginger.
"That dog," she added, "jest naturally hates the bell ringing. Animals
sense more than men!"

This slur escaped Peter, he was intent upon Northrup's question.

"Seen that girl in the yellow house?" he asked. "Great girl,
Mary-Clare. Great girl."

"I stopped there on my way here to ask directions. Rather unusual
looking girl."

"She is that!" Peter nodded. Mary-Clare was about the only bit of
romance Peter permitted himself. "Remember the night Mary-Clare was
born, Polly?"

Of course Polly remembered. Northrup felt fully convinced that Polly
knew everything in King's Forest and never forgot it. She nodded, drew
her spectacles over her eyes, and continued her knitting while Peter
hit the high spots of Mary-Clare's past. Somehow th