"What did you say, my dear?" asked Mrs. Thompson.
Before Rose could answer again came a queer, hollow, groaning noise, that sounded, the children said afterward, "as if a sick bear had hidden down the cellar and couldn't get out."
Just what sort of noise a sick bear makes I don't know, for I never heard one. But this noise at any rate, must have been very strange.
"Umph! Umph! Urr-rumph!" it went.
"There it is!" cried Rose. "That's the ghost! It sounds just like the noise at Great Hedge, doesn't it, Russ?"
"It—it sounds something like it," Russ had to admit. "But there isn't a ghost—Daddy said so."
"A ghost, child! I should say not!" cried Mrs. Thompson. "Of course there is no such thing."
"But what makes the sound?" asked Russ. "Don't you hear it?"
"I hear it!" exclaimed Laddie.
"So do I," said Violet.