"Yes; but it has now," replied Trix. "There is a man there, and he lives all alone. Our waitress, Katie, told me about it last night. I thought I'd never go to sleep for thinking about him. Katie knows a girl that saw him go through the hedge and disappear under the Dismals' pine-trees. There is something queer about him; Katie says so. They don't know whether he's crazy or whether he's wicked, or perhaps he's both. Katie says we may all be murdered in our beds. She says she thinks he's a robber who has come from somewhere, and is to make the Dismals his den. But Katie says some think he's a murderer hiding there, and again some think he's got the evil eye."
"What's that?" asked Margery, shuddering; "another eye, or what?"
"No, you goose," cried Trix; "it's an eye that looks just like others, only it's kind of set and stony, and when people look at it they're never lucky any more."
But this had not the effect Trix anticipated.
"I don't believe that," said Margery; "that sounds like a ghost story, or something of that kind. Besides, if there were an evil eye it couldn't hurt us, for we wear our medals, and if we met him we'd just hold on to them and say Hail Marys till he went by."
Trix was staggered.
"Katie didn't say so, and Katie's a Catholic," she remarked.
"Yes; but Katie doesn't understand," said Margery. "You ought to teach her not to be superstitious, Trix."
This was taking the conversation into the realms of morals, and Trix wished it to be only thrilling.
"Well, what if he's crazy or wicked?" she demanded.