Madge put her arm around Lillian. "Do tell it, Harry," she begged. "I'll protect Lillian from the 'ghosties.'"
The other young people clamored for the ghost story.
Harry looked serious. "My story isn't a joke," he announced. "It hasn't a beginning or much of an end, like ordinary ghost stories, but it is true. The people to whom the ghost appeared are great friends of my mother and father. Somehow this deserted place here makes me think of the one down on Cape Cod. That house was also uninhabited for years and years, and no one knew exactly why, except that there were rumors that the place was haunted. One day a Mr. Peabody, of Boston, an old friend of ours, went down to Cape Cod to look for a home for the summer. The ghost house was what he wanted, so he rented it and left orders for it to be fixed up. He didn't know about the ghosts, though, and he wondered why the real estate agent let him have the place so cheaply. Mr. Peabody was a bachelor, so he asked two friends, Captain Smith and his wife, to occupy the house with him for the summer."
"Oh, trot out your ghosts, Harry. We are getting impatient," interposed Jack Bolling.
"The first day that Mrs. Smith was alone in the house," continued Harry, "she was in the sitting room with the door open when a fragile old lady passed right through the hall. She disappeared into space. That very same night, just at midnight, when Mr. Peabody, Captain Smith and his wife were in the library, they heard the fall of a heavy body upstairs on the second floor. Captain Smith and Mr. Peabody rushed up the steps just in time to see an old man, leading a young girl by the hand, enter a room where the door was locked. When they got the door unfastened there was no one in the room."
"Harry, don't go on with that horrible tale," entreated Lillian, looking timidly up at the dusty windows of the old house, under whose shadow they had taken refuge. The sun was no longer shining brightly, but the shade was grateful to the little circle of listeners on the grass.
"Don't be such a goose, Lillian," protested Phil. "What have Harry's Massachusetts ghosts to do with us way down here in 'ole Virginny'?"
Lillian gave a shriek. The entire company sprang to their feet, scattering sandwiches, cakes and pickles on the grass. Inside the empty house there had been a distinct noise. Something had fallen heavily to the floor.
At the same instant David, who had been apart from the others, appeared around the corner of the house.
"Whew, I am glad it was you who made that racket, Brewster!" declared Jack Bolling, grinning rather foolishly.