“I’m afraid we couldn’t keep it, even if we could save it,” Granny replied. “We need the money it would bring. But as it is now, we are unable to prove title to it, and it will go and be forgotten,” she sighed pathetically. “I can stay here while I live, they have allowed me that, but Dick and Betty will be left homeless when——”
She did not finish that prophecy, but they all knew what she meant, and instantly they secretly determined to help her some way; how, they did not know.
But in a flash Sim imagined herself handing the long lost deeds to Granny Howe and then becoming a heroine. The plot had magic influence on them all.
It was Dorothy who brought them back to the present. “Was it Nathaniel Greene the workmen thought they saw the other day? But it couldn’t have been Patience on the bed,” she demurred. “Of course, the workmen didn’t know anything about these war stories.”
“There is an old tradition,” Granny resumed, “that Nathaniel appears in his tattered uniform and with his head bandaged whenever the old house, or anyone in it, is in danger.
“Sometimes, so the story goes, and you may believe it or not, as you choose,” Granny smiled whimsically, “the ghost of Patience Howe is seen wandering about the old house. Certainly she would have good reason to come back here now. Not that I believe in such things,” she hurried to declare, rather unreasonably.
The girls politely agreed, but did not want to interrupt the stirring narrative. Patience Howe’s story was simply fascinating.
“As for the figure on the bed, Patience died there when she was an old woman. Her horse fell, breaking his leg, and she was mortally injured. She died in her red cloak there on the old four-poster.” A reverent pause followed that statement. “But we are becoming too sad. All those things are over and done with. Won’t you have some more tea, my dear?” Granny quickly asked, addressing Sim.
“The story holds such strange historic interest,” Sim replied, accepting her second cup of tea. “May we go through the Hall sometime?”
“Whenever you like,” Granny consented. “But I advise you to do it soon. That Callahan will have a new batch of workmen here by the end of the week, and you won’t have the house to yourselves after that. I must say he is very determined. Don’t let those ghost stories frighten you—the house is really very interesting, and the door is always open ... to you,” and the hostess included them all with a bright smile and a graceful wave of her gentle hand.