"It's a pity we can't call up a vision of them!"
"No, thank you!" said Miss Carr, who was a practical person, and not given to romance. "I've not the slightest desire to see spooks. I'm quite content with modern life, and don't want fourteenth-century ghosts gliding about the place. Get on with your work, Diana! I'm more concerned with apple-trees than with the old monks."
When Diana got an idea into her head, however, it was apt to stick. She had a lively imagination, and she liked to picture what the Abbey had once been. She read the account of it in the local guidebook and in Chadwick's Northern Antiquities, which she borrowed from the library, and she further devoured Scott's The Monastery. Steeped in this mediæval atmosphere, she began to tell the girls such vivid stories of the doings of the brethren that they almost believed her. She invented several fictitious characters: Brother Amos, Brother Lawrence, Brother John, and Prior Andrew, and gave a most circumstantial account of their adventures.
"How do you know what they used to do?" asked Jess, much impressed.
"I guess I sort of feel it," said Diana. "It's almost like remembering."
"Some people think we come back to earth and live again. Were you one of the old monks, Di?"
"She must have been an unholy one, if she was!" interrupted Sadie. "Anybody less like a monk than 'Stars and Stripes' I couldn't think of!"
"There were all sorts, of course. I've told you Brother Lawrence was up to tricks sometimes, and got the discipline. The Prior used to be down on him, just as Toddlekins is down on us. He was more sinner than saint. That's why he can't rest quietly."
"Doesn't he rest?" Jess's voice held a note of uneasiness.
"No, I don't think he does. I've a kind of feeling that he haunts the place, coming back to find out what it's like now."