“We’ll go down and ask Susan for hot tea. That’s what we need,” said practical Nan. “And let’s keep still about this.”
“About Walter and all?”
“Oh, no! I mean about what we saw at the boathouse.”
“Then you do admit we saw something?” cried Bess.
“That’s just it,” said Nan drily. “We did see something. Therefore it was not a ghost.”
Her insistence on this point vexed Bess not a little. She felt that they had seen a strange thing, and she wanted to tell the other girls about it. But what would be the use of doing that if her chum pooh-poohed the idea of a ghost and merely went to Henry, as she threatened to, and told him that some tramp, or other prowler, was hanging about the boathouse?
“For,” said Nan, “the girls keep bathing suits and sweaters and all sorts of things down there and that fellow, whoever he is, may be light-fingered.”
“Dear me!” grumbled Bess, “you never are romantic.”
“Humph! what’s romantic about a disembodied spirit? Smells of the tomb!” declared Nan.
There was one thing, however, that had to be told. The canoe was lost and Mrs. Cupp must be informed at once. So after supper the two chums sought that stern lady’s room, which was right at the top of the basement stairs.