Part 9 (1/2)

We dined without the pleasure of the society of Ptolemy and Diogenes, who had been invited to sit at the table with the landlady's children. I might state, incidentally, that the invitation was never repeated.

Beth was quite excited over her walk.

”Ptolemy and I,” she boasted, ”made more of a discovery than Mr.

Rossiter did. We found a haunted house, a perfectly haunted house.”

”I am not surprised,” declared Silvia. ”You couldn't expect any other kind of a house in such a region.”

”Where is it?” I asked, ”and what is it haunted by?”

”Insects,” suggested Silvia.

”You go around sh.o.r.e about two miles, only it's farther, as you have to make so many ups and downs over the rocks. Then you leave the sh.o.r.e and go through a low marshy stretch, sort of a Dismal Swamp, and then up a hill. After Ptolemy and I climbed to the top, we looked down and saw, hidden in a clump of lonely looking poplars, a small, rudely built house. We went down to explore and had hard work making our way through a thick growth of--everything. We crawled under some tangled vines and came up on the steps. The house was vacant, although there were a few old pieces of furniture--a couple of cots, a cook-stove, table, and chairs.

”On our way home we met a woman who gave us a history of the house. An old miser lived there long ago. One night he was robbed and murdered, and his ghost still haunts the place. No one ventures in its vicinity, and she said most likely we were the first people who had gone there since the tragedy. She told us of a nearer way to reach it. You take the road to Windy Creek, and about two miles below here, turn into a lane and then go through a grove and over a hill.”

”You don't really believe the story, that is, the ghost part of it?”

asked Rossiter.

”N--o,” allowed Beth. ”Still, I'd like to. It makes it interesting.

Ptolemy and I are going down there some night to see if we can find the ghost.”

”You won't see one,” I a.s.sured her. ”Ptolemy's presence would be sufficient to keep even a ghost in the background.”

”Ptolemy's a peach,” declared Beth emphatically.

”If he were older, you wouldn't think so,” said Rob.

”Why not?” asked Beth in surprise, or seeming surprise.

He smiled enigmatically, and irrelevantly asked her if she wouldn't really be afraid to go to the haunted house at night with only Ptolemy for protection.

She a.s.sured him she shouldn't be afraid of a ghost if she saw one, and that she shouldn't be afraid to go alone.

Throughout the evening, which we spent in rowing, walking, and later at a little impromptu supper, I was interested in observing the puzzling behavior of Beth and my chum. I had expected that he would avoid her as much as possible and speak to her only when common politeness made conversation obligatory, and that she, a born coquette, would seek to add his scalp to her collection. Instead, to my surprise, their roles were reversed. He appeared interested in her every remark and looked at her often and intently. He was quite a.s.siduous in his attentions which, strange to say, she discouraged, not with the deep design of a flirt to increase his ardor, but with a calm firmness that admitted of no doubt as to her feelings.

”Your sister,” he remarked to me as we were walking down to the lake for a swim just before going to bed, ”is a very unusual type.”

”Not at all!” I a.s.sured him. ”Beth is the true feminine type which you have never taken the trouble to know.”

”Oh, come, Lucien! Not feminine, you know. Though she is inconsistent.”

I resented the imputation hotly, but he only laughed and said that he guessed it was true that a man didn't understand the women in his family as well as an outsider did.

”You think,” I said, ”just because she says she isn't afraid of ghosts--”

”Not at all,” he denied. ”That wasn't the reason, but--I like her type, though I always supposed I wouldn't. It is a new one to me--anyway. I didn't think so young a girl as she--”