"It has really!" she assured them in a whisper. "O-o-h!" came in a horror-stricken chorus. "How do you know?" "I've just heard Bella telling Cook. It's Bella's evening out, and she went down the back carriage drive into Poplar Lane to take a short cut to meet a friend, and just when she got under the shade of the trees she saw something all in white coming towards her. She shrieked and ran straight back to the house, and she says she daren't go out again, even though her own cousin is waiting for her at the other end of the lane." "Bella's rather a goose," put in Nesta, who had moved to the end of the table so as to overhear. "I shouldn't believe a word she says." "It's quite true though. She saw it with her own eyes." "She certainly couldn't see it with anybody else's," retorted Nesta scornfully. "It was probably a white cow coming down the lane." "No, it wasn't. It was really the ghost. Bella felt a most extraordinary feeling as if the blood was freezing in her veins. She says she never remembers anything like it since the night a dog howled under her window and her grandmother died. Her heart stood absolutely still for two whole minutes." "Bunkum! Bella hasn't had physiology lessons or she'd know that's impossible. Why she wouldn't be alive to tell the tale!" snorted Nesta. "How can you swallow such precious stuff, you little silly?" "It's not stuff." "Indeed it is." "Then don't listen." "I certainly shan't," and Nesta, moving her painting things along the table, went back to her original place. Her curiosity, however, got the better of her. She had sharp ears and she caught most of what followed, losing a few details, for Nita was whispering and Nesta was too proud to move nearer. The other two put their heads very close to Nita's in order to hear the interesting particulars. "I didn't know Poplar Lane was haunted," said Mamie. "Yes, it is, by a woman in white. She appears quite suddenly standing near our gate. But she hasn't been seen for a long time." "I thought only old houses had ghosts," ventured Alison. "The Moorings isn't so very old, is it?" "It's quite old enough to have a ghost. There's a story about it--an _awful_ story! Bella told it to me." "What is it?" "I don't know whether I ought to tell it to you." "Oh, go on!" "Well, a gentleman used to live here once," began Nita, in tones of delighted importance. "His name was Mr. Morrison. Late one night--it was exactly at midnight--he happened to look out of the window, and he saw a white carriage with a pair of white horses drive up to the door, but it didn't make the least sound of wheels or hoofs. And, do you know, he died afterwards." "Of course he died afterwards," was heard from Nesta's end of the table. "He couldn't very well die before, could he? Perhaps it was twenty years afterwards." "I thought you weren't listening. No, it was quite soon afterwards. Wasn't it horrible?"