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the pickle bottle. She looked furtively around and was relieved to find that her refuge was entirely hidden from the street. Then she gave herself up to a few minutes’ enjoyment of the unusual. She opened every package and spread out everything she had bought, to the immense enjoyment of her companion, who commented on each article.
    “Say, them cakes is
dee
-lickety! Ever taste ’em before? I had a dime’s worth once, and gingersnaps wasn’t in it with ’em.”
    “Have one, do, to begin with,” said Constance in childish delight, holding out the paper bag containing the delicacies. She wondered what the stately butler at home would say, could he see her now.
    As they lunched together, Constance began to notice the boy stealing puzzled wondering glances at her. He seemed nervous, too, and would give a start at the slightest sound. She wondered at it but said nothing.
    They grew quite friendly as the time went on. He confided that his name was James Abercrombie Watts but that she “needn’t mind to use it.” “Jest call me Kid—it’s what they all do,” he added with a confiding wink that took her into the inner sanctuary of his confidence. “My brother, he works in the grocery, an’ he don’t never call me nothin’ but Kid. If it wasn’t fer Mother—she calls me Jimmy yet—I’d forget I was anything but the Kid. ‘Crazy Kid,’ the fellers calls me. Say, was you ever here before?”
    His mouth was full of good things, and Constance marveled at his capacity and the rapidity with which he was emptying the bench. For herself, a very little of each article sufficed. The quality was not what she was accustomed to finding on her home table. Nevertheless, she did quite well, considering the provisions. On the other hand, the boy was having the time of his life. Not even the pickles were too much for him, and he was rapidly lowering the bottle with no thought, apparently, of ceasing till he had completed his task. Constance wondered what kind of a stomach he possessed, but he seemed not in the least concerned about it.
    Constance told him that she was on her way to Chicago and had never had the pleasure of stopping in that town before.
    “Then you don’t know ’bout this here house.” He relaxed as if that explained everything. “I thought first you did; you looked at it as if you did. This is the hanted house of Rushville.”
    He paused and waited to see what effect his words would have, but Constance looked at him in bewilderment.
    “What kind of house did you say this was?” she asked.
    “Hanted,” he replied, “hanted. Don’t you know what that means? It’s a hanted house, has ghosts in it, don’t you know? Didn’t you never hear of a house being hanted with ghosts?”
    “Oh,” said Constance, trying not to laugh, “a haunted house. Yes, I know. Who haunts it?”
    “Oh, a girl. And I guess she’s about your size, too. My uncle seen her once when he was comin’ home from work this way real late. She was down there by the pond a-rockin’ in that there flat boat, an’ her white lace dress an’ gold hair all floatin’ through the water round her an’ never gettin’ wet a bit. She was singin’ a pretty song, too, an’ Uncle said it made the tears come in his eyes, it was so sad. You see, her beau, he got killed, an’ she come here an’ lived with her folks to try an’ make her forget about it, but someway it didn’t work, an’ she made up her mind she’d die, too, ’cause he had, so she tried to drown herself in the pond, but that didn’t work, neither, ’cause the big dog they had pulled her out, an’ then after that she went upstairs to the attic an’ took poison. They say the dog felt so bad that he just lay round and whined till he died, too, so now she ’n’ the dog, they come back and walk here every so often, and once in every little while somebody sees ’em, and it’s got so that lots of folks won’t come down to the station for the late train if they can help