Everett was entertaining Ann and Horace Shellington at dinner, and after the repast the youngsters betook themselves to the large square room given to the young host's own use. Here were multitudinous playthings and mechanical toys of all descriptions. For many minutes the children had been too interested to note that the shadows were grown long and that a somber gloom had settled down over the cemetery that lay just beyond the windows.
Ann Shellington, a delicate little creature of eight, looked up nervously. "Everett, draw down the curtain," she said. "It looks so ghostly out there!"
Ann made a motion toward the window; but the boy did not obey her.
"Isn't that just like a girl, 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.