“This place,” Dick began with an including gesture, “once belonged in my grandmother’s family. But the deed, or some necessary paper, has been lost, and now the state claims the estate, and the old house is to be torn down to make way for a road. The march of progress, you know, must not be halted.”
“But has it no historic interest?” Terry asked. “Couldn’t it be preserved as a shrine of some sort? I mean the house, for you said Jockey Hollow is going to be a park.”
“I’m afraid not,” continued Dick. “I guess it’s about the only mansion that George Washington never visited. Besides, the original house has been added to so many times that now it is a combination of three or four periods.”
“What would your grandmother do with this property if she could find the deed?” asked Terry practically.
“Sell it,” answered Dick without any hesitation. “At least it would bring enough money for me to give up this stable job that any half-wit could hold and let me finish at college. Then Betty, she’s my sister, could go to New York and keep on with her work in costume design and interior decoration. She’s really talented,” he added earnestly.
“If this home were mine I should hate to part with it,” Arden announced. “I don’t see how your grandmother can bear to give it up. Isn’t there a chance that she could keep it, Dick?”
“Perhaps, if we could prove title. But even then we need the money its sale would bring. Granny ought to have little comforts, though really she’s been swell about it all. Never complains. And the stories she knows!”
“What does she say about the ghosts?” Sim asked.
“Just laughs. She says she’d sleep here on All Souls’ Eve or any other particularly ghostly time. I guess she likes ghosts.”
“I’d love to meet her sometime. Do you think we might? I wish we could help some way,” said Arden thoughtfully.