"Not much!" answered the lady briefly. "Scared!"
She did not seat herself beside him on the bowlder, but chose instead to drop at full length on a patch of green turf at his feet. With such breath as remained to her she expelled a sigh of relief.
"Scared, eh? I didn't suppose there was anything on earth that could scare you!"
She pounced instantly on his phraseology. "Perhaps not—on earth!" In a smaller voice than she was wont to employ, she added timidly, "Simon, d-do you believe in ghosts?"
"Ghosts!" He fortified himself by a glance at the cabbages. "Talk sense, Ocky!"
"Who says it isn't sense?" snapped Miss Copley. "Anyway, I just got the shock of my long and exciting life. See here, Simon—didn't you come up that path a few minutes ago?"
"I did. What of it?"
"I was sure it was you ahead of me as we crossed the meadow. Tell me, did you meet anything—I mean, any one?"
"What do you mean? Did you?"
"Y-yes. A figure in black—dressed something like a monk. I didn't meet him, exactly—he dodged into the woods as I came along. That is, I suppose he did—he just seemed to vanish!"