and the rustling leaves and the stray
patches of moonlight.

And Betty went forward alone with the baby. Her heart was beating in a
sickening way, but her courage was, as usual, equal to the occasion. It
was far easier to her to go forward than backward now, and she braced
herself up with a few of her stock phrases--"He won't eat me anyway";
"It'll be all the same in a hundred years"; "No Bruce is afraid _ever_."

A great bay window jutted into the darkness and gave out a blaze of
light. This was the lowest room in the tower portion of the house and
was, as Betty knew, her grandfather's study.

Betty's mind was swiftly made up. All fear had left her, and she
stepped into the soft moonlight--a ghost indeed.

She called Cyril, and her voice was so imperative that he quitted his
sheltering tree and ran to where she stood on the edge of the grove.

"Take Baby," she said whisperingly; "I can't do what I want with her in
my arms."

"Come home, B--B--Betty," implored the small youth--and his teeth
chattered as he spoke--"I--I don't want to be adopted. I----"

"Hush!" urged Betty, and filled his arms with the baby. "I--I don't want
to be r--rich," cried Cyril. "It's b--b--better to be poor."

"H--sh!" said Betty again.

"I--I don't want to be like a c--camel!" whimpered the boy. "R--remember
about rich men getting to Heaven."

"Stay close here with Baby," ordered the little ghost, and the next
second she had glided away over the path to the verandah. She went close
to the window--three blinds had been left undrawn and the window panes
ran down to the verandah floor. Surely the room had been designed
expressly for this night.

Cyril, in horror, beheld his sister creep to the first window and peep
in; creep to the second--to the third.

All the other windows were darkened; only this one room in all the great
house seemed to be awake.

Then, in the silence which lay everywhere, a blood-curdling thing
happened. Betty's "clanking chain" came in contact with something of
iron reared up near the window and gave forth a fearsome sound. Cold
chills played about Cyril's back, a distant dog barked--and Baby awoke.

Betty at once perceived this to be the one moment. Many people can
recognize their moment when it has gone. Betty's talent lay in seeing it
just as it arrived.

If truth must be confessed, fear had once or twice during this campaign
tugged at her heart; when Cyril had urged home, her greatest desire had
been