rl, Horace?" he asked. "I'm not afraid of
ghosts. Dead people can't walk, can they, Horace?"

The other boy answered "No" thoughtfully, as he started a miniature
train across the length of the room.

"Then who is it that walks in the night out there?" insisted the girl.
"Lots of town people have seen it. It's a woman with shaggy hair, and
sometimes her eyes turn green."

"Pouf!" scoffed Everett. "My father says there aren't any such things as
ghosts. I wouldn't be a fraidy cat, Ann."

"I'm not a fraidy cat," pouted the girl. "I always go upstairs alone,
don't I, Horace?"

Another answer in the affirmative, and Horace proceeded to roll the
train back over the carpet.

"If you had any mother," said Everett, "she'd tell you there weren't any
ghosts. My mother tells me that."

"I haven't any mother," sighed the little girl, listlessly folding her
hands in her lap.

"Nor any father, either," supplemented Horace, with seemingly no thought
of the magnitude of his statement. "I don't believe in ghosts, anyhow!"

He glanced up as he spoke, and the train fell with a bang to the floor.
Everett Brimbecomb dropped the toy he held in his hand, and Ann bounded
from her chair. A white face with wide eyes, staring through scraggly
gray hair, appeared at the window. For only an instant it pressed
against the pane, then vanished as if it had never been.

"It was a woman," gasped Horace, "or was it a--"

"It wasn't a ghost," interrupted Everett stoutly. "I dare follow it out
there. Look at me!"

He straightened his shoulders, threw up his dark head, and opened the
door leading to the narrow walk at the side of the house. In another
moment the watching boy and girl at the window saw him dart into the
hedge and a minute later emerge through it, picking his way among the
ancient graves. Suddenly from behind a tall monument stole a figure, and
as it approached the solemn eyes of the apparition smiled in dull wonder
on Everett Brimbecomb.

Scraggy held out her hands. "Don't run away, little 'un," she whispered.
"There be bats flyin' about in my head; but my cat won't hurt ye."

She passed one arm about the snarling creature perched on her shoulder;
but the cat with a hiss only raised himself higher.

"Don't spit at the pretty boy, Kitty--pretty pussy, black pussy!"
wheedled the woman. "He won't hurt ye, childy. Come nearer, will ye?
This be a good cat."

"Are you a ghost?" demanded Everett, edging into the light.

"Nope, I