He strode up to her. “Wal, here you be,” he greeted her by saying. “Cal’lated you’d get here on this bo-at. Got any traps?” “We have trunks and these hand-bags.” “I d’know as I can lug the hull passel of you,” he said as he surveyed Beulah’s proportions. “I ain’t got any insurance on my kerridge, and I ain’t bought myself an aut’mobile yet.” His eyes twinkled as he said this. “I’ll get Sim to fetch up your trunks, and them as is good walkers can go on to the cawtage while I look after the lame and lazy.” “We’ll walk, Miss North and I, for I remember it isn’t far. How are your family, Cap’n Belah?” “They’re pretty spry. My woman hove her ankle out a while ago, but she’s getting on pretty good. She done it up in hot molasses and salt and she says it don’t hurt a mite. Wal, who’s going to git in first?” “Miss Crump,” Mabel said promptly. “Miss Crump, this is Cap’n Belah Simpson, who is going to help us out of all our difficulties.” Cap’n Belah grinned and jerked his head toward Beulah. “Is she one of ’em?” he asked in a stage whisper, but he helped her into the carriage and stowed away the hand luggage while Ellen and Mabel started up a long flight of stairs, past blossoming lilacs and apple trees, although it was mid-June. A little farther away the road turned and they caught sight of a wide expanse of blue sea, embraced on one side by a curving line of shore, but on the other side stretching out into what seemed limitless space. “There’s the house!” cried Mabel, quickening her steps as two or three gray roofs appeared over the brow of the hill. “Which? Which?” questioned Ellen eagerly. “The one nearest the shore to your left.” They broke into a run and reached the house before Cap’n Belah and his “kerridge” arrived. “We have the key to the back door,” announced Mabel; “we’ll go in that way.” This they did, and at once entered a small passage which led on one side into the kitchen and on the other to the maid’s room. Mabel surveyed the two rooms speculatively. “I pray they may be big enough for Beulah,” she remarked. Then there came a pounding at the front door, and they went on through the living-room to admit Cap’n Belah’s load. CHAPTER XV THE HAUNTED HOUSE An intensely blue sea embracing green islands, gray rocks against which sometimes curled, sometimes dashed, white-crested waves; a sky softly blue in the daytime, often rosy-flecked at sunset, at night a splendid background for myriad stars which never before seemed so near and so bright; peaked fir trees, song sparrows singing from the housetops, robins calling cheerfully from grassy hummocks, all these so impressed Ellen that it was with difficulty that she could bring herself to make a practical application of her mind to such affairs as her cousin demanded.