“Perhaps he hid papers, then, in one of those chests, or bureaus up there?”
“Cyan’t say, Missie. Mebbe. But yo’ don’ ketch Unc’ Rufus goin’ up dem garret stairs much—no’m!”
“Why not, Uncle Rufus?” asked Ruth, quickly. “Are you afraid of the garret ghost?”
“Glo-ree! who done tell yo’ erbout dat?” demanded the colored man, rolling his eyes again. “Don’ talk erbout ghos’es; it’s sho’ baid luck.”
That was all Ruth could get out of the old negro. He had all the fear of his race for supernatural things.
It was the next day that Mrs. Kranz came to call. The Corner House girls had never seen Mrs. Kranz before, but they never could forget her after their first view of her!
She was a huge lady, in a purple dress, and with a sweeping gray plume on her big hat, and lavender gloves. She had the misfortune to possess a hair-mole on one of her cheeks, and Dot could not keep her eyes off of that blemish, although she knew it was impolite to stare.
Mrs. Kranz came to the front door of the old Corner House and gave a resounding summons on the big, brass knocker that decorated the middle panel. Nobody had ventured to approach that door, save Mr. Howbridge, since the Corner House girls had come to Milton.
“Goodness! who can that be?” demanded Agnes, when the reverberations of the knocker echoed through the big hall.
“Company! I know it’s company!” cried Tess, running to peer out of the dining-room window.