“Maybe,” assented Cap’n Smiley. Ho Ha was speechless. The keeper looked at him. “See your uncle, Mermaid,” he directed. “Living up to his name, isn’t he?” The child caught the contagion of laughter and bubbled with it herself. “Do tell me what’s so funny, Uncle Ho,” she begged. “Please do!” “A ghost just told me a joke,” said Ho Ha, looking at her with twinkling eyes. Mermaid was alert and excited at once. She believed in ghosts, not only because she was seven years old but because she lived on the Great South Beach where ghosts are natural and both respectable and respected. She clamoured to hear the joke. Ho Ha considered. He did not know as he ought to tell her; perhaps the ghost would not like that; it might want to tell Mermaid itself. “Could you tell me what ghost it is?” the youngster besought him. “Was it the Duneswoman?” “No,” Ho Ha answered. “It was one of the pirates. One of Kidd’s men. One of those fellows with gold earrings and black whiskers. Well--I don’t know’s there’s any harm in my telling you. He said if Kidd had been spanked proper as a boy----” Ho Ha stopped, as if no more need be said, and shook his head with a regretful air. Mermaid remarked: “Do you suppose, Uncle Ho, that Mrs. Biggles spanks Mr. Biggles?” “No doubt she has to sometimes,” agreed Ho Ha, with perfect seriousness. Mermaid emptied her apron of a pint of plums. Her mind slipped back to ghosts. “Dad,” she asked Cap’n Smiley, “does the Duneswoman know everything about the beach?” “I think she does, pretty nearly,” the keeper told her. “Do you see much of her?” “Only her head and arms. Sometimes she reaches out her arm to me.” “I meant, do you see her often?” “Oh, yes! Except when I’m with Mrs. Biggles. Mrs. Biggles says she never has seen her. She says I ought not to see her and mustn’t pay any ’tention to her,” Mermaid informed him. “Perhaps that’s because Mrs. Biggles never sees her and doesn’t know how nice she is.” “Just what _I_ said.” Mermaid bit a plum and made a wry face. She wanted to ask Dad more about the Duneswoman. That was a ghost only he and she had seen--a lovely Face and Arm that sometimes floated for an instant on the dark summer ocean, looked toward you ... and was gone. VIII A golden October when, for days, the sun shone and the beach was veiled with faintly coloured mists; when the crack of duck hunters’ guns came from over the bay; when the ocean advanced on the smoothly sanded shore in long and majestic curves, so that to stand upon the dunes and look at it was like looking down a flight of steps of boundless width.... The Atlantic made itself into a glittering staircase leading straight to the sun.