"Say, this is some classy place, what?" said Chet, stopping in front of the rambling old house and regarding it admiringly. "Have you met with any ghosts yet, girls?"
"Oh, half a dozen," said Laura indifferently, and he was just about to ask some more questions when Mrs. Gilligan met them at the door and began giving instructions.
After that there was nothing to do but obey, and the boys and girls did not meet again until lunch time. Then they regarded each other across the table joyfully.
"I say, let's go for a tramp in the woods this afternoon," Ferd suggested, after he and the other lads had taken a look around the house. "This is the prettiest, wildest country I've ever seen, and I'd like to nose about a little."
"But we thought you'd like to see what the attic and cellar look like," said Billie. "We had the afternoon all planned."
"Let's do that to-morrow," Ferd begged boyishly. "This is too nice a day to spend indoors."
So it was decided to go outside and as soon as the dinner dishes were cleared away—at which the boys assisted without so much as a grumble—the young folks started out on their tour of discovery.
The girls had spent much of their time in the old house since their arrival, for they had found an almost inexhaustible supply of strange corners and unexpected rooms and peculiar ornaments that had fascinated them.
But to-day, as they felt the warm sunshine on their heads, as the wind caressed their faces and the scents of the woodland bathed them in perfume, they were glad they had let the boys have their way and had decided to spend the glorious afternoon in the open.
"Did you win the tennis singles?" Billie asked of Teddy, as she stopped to smell a bunch of strange flowers. "I was rooting for you."