who was strictly forbidden even to peep
through the key-hole) to the dark passage that ran from the bedrooms to
the dining-room and front door. He went on with his plans while he
waited. All day he had been thinking of the rainbow coloured future
Betty assured him was his. He had quite decided to leave school directly
he was adopted, and to have "some one" come to teach him at home. Of
course his grandfather would not be able to bear him out of his sight.
He had heard of such cases, and supposed he was about to become one.
Then he decided to have a pony, a nice quiet little thing with a back
not _too_ far from the ground; and he would have a boat and sail her
where the coral islands were, and he would have a few new marbles--and
get his grandfather to have the emus killed.

He had just arrived at the part of the story where his grandfather was
giving orders for the destruction of his emus, when Betty opened the
bedroom door a crack, and whispered his name.

She shut the door at once, before he was fairly inside the room, and
then he saw her.

Such a strange new Betty she was, that he almost cried out. Her
face was white--white as death; two black cork lines stood for
eyebrows, and black lines lay under her eyes, making them larger
and unnatural-looking. She wore a black gown of her mother's, and
a black capacious bonnet, and had a rusty dog chain tied to one
arm. She moved her arm and fixed her eyes on her startled brother.

"Do you hear my clanking chain?" she asked in what she fondly believed
to be "sepulchral tones." "Ghosts always have them. Come on."

But Cyril hung back somewhat--perhaps the glories of "being adopted"
paled beside the unpleasantness of walking a lonely road in such unusual
company.

"It's--it's a silly game," he said. "I don't see any good in it at all."

But the little ghost turned upon him spiritedly.

"This isn't a game at all," she said. "This is _real_. It'll make mother
friends with grandfather, and get you adopted. Get baby and come on--it
might frighten her if she saw me."

"They'll find out that she's gone," said Cyril, still leaning upon the
bed-foot and eyeing his sister distrustfully. "Let's chuck it, Betty,
we'll only get in a row."

"We won't get in a row," said Betty staunchly. "She'll be only too glad
when we come back and tell them all. I didn't undress Baby to-night, and
I put on her blue sash and everything. All you've to do is to wrap that
shawl round her and catch