"On our way home we met a woman who gave us a history of the house. An old miser lived there long ago. One night he was robbed and murdered, and his ghost still haunts the place. No one ventures in its vicinity, and she said most likely we were the first people who had gone there since the tragedy. She told us of a nearer way to reach it. You take the road to Windy Creek, and about two miles below here, turn into a lane and then go through a grove and over a hill." "You don't really believe the story, that is, the ghost part of it?" asked Rossiter. "N--o," allowed Beth. "Still, I'd like to. It makes it interesting. Ptolemy and I are going down there some night to see if we can find the ghost." "You won't see one," I assured her. "Ptolemy's presence would be sufficient to keep even a ghost in the background." "Ptolemy's a peach," declared Beth emphatically. "If he were older, you wouldn't think so," said Rob. "Why not?" asked Beth in surprise, or seeming surprise. He smiled enigmatically, and irrelevantly asked her if she wouldn't really be afraid to go to the haunted house at night with only Ptolemy for protection. She assured him she shouldn't be afraid of a ghost if she saw one, and that she shouldn't be afraid to go alone. Throughout the evening, which we spent in rowing, walking, and later at a little impromptu supper, I was interested in observing the puzzling behavior of Beth and my chum. I had expected that he would avoid her as much as possible and speak to her only when common politeness made conversation obligatory, and that she, a born coquette, would seek to add his scalp to her collection. Instead, to my surprise, their rôles were reversed. He appeared interested in her every remark and looked at her often and intently. He was quite assiduous in his attentions which, strange to say, she discouraged, not with the deep design of a flirt to increase his ardor, but with a calm firmness that admitted of no doubt as to her feelings. "Your sister," he remarked to me as we were walking down to the lake for a swim just before going to bed, "is a very unusual type." "Not at all!" I assured him. "Beth is the true feminine type which you have never taken the trouble to know." "Oh, come, Lucien! Not feminine, you know. Though she is inconsistent." I resented the imputation hotly, but he only laughed and said that he guessed it was true that a man didn't understand the women in his family as well as an outsider did. "You think," I said, "just because she says she isn't afraid of ghosts--" "Not at all," he denied. "That wasn't the reason, but--I like her type, though I always supposed I wouldn't. It is a new one to me--anyway. I didn't think so young a girl as she--" Our discussion was cut short by the inevitable, ever-present Ptolemy, who came running up to us, clad in about four inches of swimming trunks. "Why aren't you in bed?" I demanded.