.

"If we only hadn't begun to _think_ about ghosts! You never can see
them, anyway--you just feel them. Is that the wind? Sit close to me,
Jerry."

Jerry sat very close to her chum and they gripped hands; it was easier,
that way, to endure the dreadful silence.

"I'm hungry," whispered Gyp, after awhile. Then, a moment later, "Did
you hear something, Jerry--like a long, long sigh?"

Jerry nodded and Gyp drew closer to her, shivering.

"Of course," she murmured in a voice lowered to the etiquette of a
haunted room. "_You're_ not frightened because you didn't _know_ Uncle
Peter. If I was afraid of him when he was _alive_ what----"

"Sh-h-h!" commanded Jerry. Uncle Peter's ghost might be hovering very
close to them and might hear! Gyp's words did not sound exactly
respectful.

Jerry tried to talk of everyday things but it was of no use--what
mattered the color of Sue Knox's new sweater when the very air tingled
with spirits?

"_Oh-h!_" Gyp clutched Jerry in a spasm of fright. "_Something_ grabbed
my elbow----" her voice was scarcely audible. "Jerry--_true_ as I
live--cross my heart! Long--bony--fingers--just like Uncle Peter's used
to feel--_Oh-h_!"

CHAPTER XIX

THE LETTER

"I don't understand----" Mrs. Westley lifted anxious eyes from her
soup-plate. "Gyp _always_ telephones! And _both_ of them----"

"I saw Peggy Lee and Pat Everett coming home from the dressmaker's and
she wasn't with them," offered Isobel. "But she's all right, mother."

"Such dreadful things happen----"

"I'd like to see anyone try to kidnap _Gyp_," laughed Graham. Then he
added, in an off-hand way: "The ice broke on the lake out at Highacres
to-day. Guess the skating's over."

"Graham!" cried Mrs. Westley, springing to her feet so precipitously
that her chair fell backward with a crash. Her face was deathly white.

Graham, frightened by his careless remark, went to her quickly.

"Mother--I didn't mean to frighten you! Why there's only one chance in a
hundred the girls were on the ice. If they'd been skating _some_ of us
would have seen them!"

"Where _are_ they?" groaned the mother. "They might have gone on the
lake--afterwards--and not known--and broken through--and--no one
would--know----" She shuddered; only by a great effort could she keep
back the tears.

"Mother, please don't worry," begged Isobel. "Let's call up every one of
the girls and then we'll surely find them."

Not one of them wanted any more dinner.