Nancy could do in that direction.

Cyril was more matter-of-fact.

"If he wouldn't forgive mother when she took Dot, he's not very likely
to soften to you with Baby," he said.

But Betty had counted that risk too.

"You forget he's ever so many years older," she said. "He's an old man
now, and it's quite time he woke up. I've been thinking of everything
we've to do and everything we've to say."

"Ghosts don't talk," said Cyril.

"They moan," replied Betty; "and they _do_ talk. In _Lady Anne's
Causeway_ there's a ghost, and it speaks in sepulchral tones and says:
'Come hither, come hither to my home; thy time is come.'"

The little girl's eyes were shining; the very thought of that other
ghost's "sepulchral" tones gave her a thrill down her back and lifted
her out of herself. Of all her plots and plans, and they were many and
various, there was not one to compare in magnitude with this. In her
thoughts she became a ghost, straightway. She glided about the house,
her lips moved but gave no sound, her eyes shone. Underneath the
exhilaration, that her ghostly feelings gave, was the smooth sense of
being about to do a great deed that would benefit every one--Cyril, her
mother, her father, Dot, every one. Tears glistened in her eyes as she
thought of the meeting between her grandfather and her mother, and
beheld in fancy her pretty mother clasped at last in the sea-captain's
arms.

Throughout that Saturday afternoon she made her preparations, only now
and then giving Cyril a trifling explanation. He was much relieved to
hear he would not be expected to take any active part in the
proceedings, only to be at hand, in hiding, to help his ghostly sister
carry the baby.

Tea was always an early meal at The Gunyah, that Mr. Bruce might have a
long evening at his writing, and the children at their home lessons.

To-night, after the last cup and saucer had been washed and dried by
Betty and put away by Dot, and after the baby, had been tucked into her
little crib, by Betty again, a long pleasant evening seemed to stretch
before every one.

Mr. Bruce brought out _My Study Windows_, and declared he had "broken
up" till Monday. Mrs. Bruce opened a certain exercise book her eldest
daughter had given her, imploring secrecy, and Dot sat down to the piano
and wandered stumblingly into Mendelssohn's Duetto. The twins, to every
one's entire satisfaction, "slipped away"--Betty to her bedroom to make
her preparations, and Cyril (