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it, since Miz Horner fainted away just hearin’ her sing the time she come back from her daughter’s funeral out west.”
    “Oh Jimmy, you don’t believe all that stuff, now surely,” said Constance, when the voluble flow of words ceased for another pickle. “You’re too bright a boy not to know better than to believe in ghosts in this age of the world.”
    Jimmy’s face darkened. It was the village pet tradition. It had made his hair rise on end many a dark night. He and one or two other heroes liked to tell daring tales of how they had trod the awful precincts of the haunted property alone upon occasion. It was not pleasant to have all this flouted, and by a girl with pretty clothes.
    “Course I believe it,” he responded darkly. “Didn’t I tell you my uncle seen her once? And heaps of folks has seen her. She always comes in the dark o’ the moon. Why, everybody round here knows it’s true, and you can’t get a soul to rent or buy this house. It’s stood empty ever since she died, except when Si Barton started to keep a saloon over there—but he didn’t stay but a month. One night when the men was all drinkin’ hard, an’ some was playin’ cards in there round the tables, all of a sudden a white hand like a piece of mist off the swamp come up and turned every lamp in the room low, and then in she an’ the dog come, walkin’ slow’s you please, an’ they went all round the room, and thet there dog druv every man out’n that room, and Si Barton just stood there with his eyes bulged out and never spoke a word till she got tired and went off, and when mornin’ come he come to an’ picked up his things and moved out, and pretty soon he up ’n’ built them stores over there, and now he keeps the drugstore, since prohibition won’t let him have no saloon. Oh, there’s plenty o’ people seen her. This ain’t no yarn I’m tellin’ you, honest, ’taint. It’s
fierce
, I tell you, the way she scares folks. Lots of ’em see her every little while.”
    “Jimmy, did
you
ever see her?” asked Constance, laughing merrily. She was enjoying her companion immensely.
    “No ma’am, I never seen her myself, but I ’most did oncet.” He sailed into a lengthy description of a time of which he had often boasted to the boys. The real foundation for it had been a terrible fright he had received by the vision of Mrs. Harkins’s white cat from the station stealing across the sidewalk in front of him.
    While this story was going on, Constance grew thoughtful. She did not give her attention quite so carefully to the details of the white lady who walked with her dog. An idea struck her. Perhaps she had reached a partial solution of her destiny, even here in this little village.
    “Jimmy,” she said suddenly, rising and brushing the crumbs away, “show me the house, won’t you? I’d like to go all through it. There’s no danger that anyone will see us and shoot me for the haunting lady, is there?”
    Jimmy eyed her suspiciously. There was a hint of merriment in her voice that almost seemed as if it were directed at him. But she was smiling pleasantly at him, and her eyes looked kind. He rose and led the way to the broken shutter, crept in through the window, and opened the front door on its rusty hinges, looking meanwhile fearfully behind him to be sure no haunting lady was following.
    The large old-fashioned hall opened in the center of the house. Thanks to the haunting lady, it had been kept from the marauding attacks to which most empty houses are subject. The wide, low staircase ran invitingly up to the second story, and with a square landing midway, suggested a grandfather clock. The walls were scratched and the floorboards were warped, but the entrance was pleasant in spite of it all. On the right was the drawing room, afterward the barroom, from all appearances, running the whole depth of the house, with windows of ample proportions on three sides. A high marble mantel and gilt-framed mirror was