“Well,” Eva said, as she and Myra joined them on the porch, “I understand you have ransacked that old garret. Did you chase out Mr. Ghost?”
“What is that?” demanded Mrs. Treble’s shrill voice in the doorway. “What does that girl mean by ‘ghost’?”
“Oh, Mrs. Treble!” cried the teasing Eva. “Haven’t you heard of the famous Garret Ghost of the old Corner House—and you here so long?”
“Oh, don’t!” begged Ruth, sotto voce.
Mrs. Treble was not to be denied. Something evidently had escaped her curiosity, and she felt cheated of a sensation. “Go on and tell me, girl,” she commanded Eva.
Eva, really nothing loath, related the story of the supposed supernatural occupant of the garret. “And it appears on stormy, windy days. At least, that’s when it’s been seen. It comes to the window up there and bows, and flutters its grave clothes—and—and all that.”
“How ridiculous!” murmured Ruth. But her face was troubled and Mrs. Treble studied her accusingly.
“That’s why you forbade my Lillie going up there,” she said. “A ghost, indeed! I guess you have something hidden up there, my girl, that you don’t want other folks to see. You can’t fool me about ghosts. I don’t believe in them,” concluded the lady from Ypsilanti.
“Now you’ve done it, Eva,” said Agnes, in a low voice, when Mrs. Treble had departed. “There isn’t a place in this house that she hasn’t tried to put her nose in but the garret. Now she’ll go up there.”
“Hush,” begged Ruth, again. “Don’t get her angry, Agnes.”