“Sure. It’s not a ghost, of course, but it’s somebody all right, in a long white cloak sort of thing, with one hand stretched out, holding something red. The way it cries is certainly spooky,” added John, with a forced laugh.
Madeline exchanged swift glances with Mr. Dwight. “‘A trailing white robe and a sob in the night’—that was what the old crone said, wasn’t it? And there was nothing there when you came up, Babe?”
“Oh, I saw it,” said Babe with careful unconcern, “but of course it can’t be a ghost—nobody believes in ghosts nowadays. I thought it was one of you girls trying to frighten me.”
“Maybe it’s a white cow,” suggested Babbie. “They make queer noises sometimes. Don’t you remember that the fierce black one did?”
But this suggestion was received with great contempt by all three of the ghost-seers, who declared excitedly that they could tell the difference between a cow and a woman, even if it was a little dusky in the wood.
“Well, of course I don’t want it to turn out to be a cow,” Babbie explained apologetically. “But it seems too good to be true that it’s a ghost. I’m going down to find it this very minute.”
“Alone?” inquired Babe gravely.
“No, indeed,” interposed Mrs. Hildreth promptly, when Madeline pointed down to the open lawn below them.
“You don’t need to go down, Babbie. Look there.”
The white figure was coming slowly, silently out from behind a clump of tall bushes. The moon had risen above the trees, and shone full on the little lawn in front of the castle, making it almost as bright as day. Slowly, silently the white figure came forward, trailing its robe over the short grass, one hand held aloft, its gaze fastened on what the hand held—a bright bit of cloth, it seemed to be. When it had reached the centre of the lawn, the figure paused and throwing back its head, so that the moonlight fell full on its face—the sweet, sad face of a young girl—it began the uncanny moaning that had sent Babe flying to find her friends.