Starting back she heard a noise and stopped, her heart pounding and little pin pricks crinkling her scalp; then she hurried to the stairs, almost running. But she did not run up the stairs, for she didn't wish to have Aunt Esmerelda think her afraid. She was a glad little girl, nevertheless, when she was safe again in the light kitchen. "Yo' didn' see nothin'?" demanded Aunt Esmerelda. "I didn't see anything," said Hortense. "I heard something, but it was probably only a rat." She spoke bravely, quite like Grandfather. "'Twan't no rat," muttered Aunt Esmerelda gloomily, shaking her head. "It's a ha'nt or a ghos'. Dey's ha'nts and ghos's all 'roun dis place." Hortense began to feel quite brave after she had arrived safely in the cheerful dining room. Grandfather looked at her, shrewdly smiling. "Did you see or hear anything?" he asked. "I heard--a noise," replied Hortense. "And were you afraid?" he asked again. Hortense looked into his bright, kind eyes. "A little," she confessed. Grandfather took her on his knee. "It isn't being afraid that matters," he said. "It's doing what you set out to do whether afraid or not That's what it is to be brave." "Really?" Hortense asked. "Yes, really," assured Grandfather. "It is not brave to be without fear, but to overcome it. Now we'll go into the library, and I'll tell you the promised story and give you something--but what it is, I'll not reveal until later." Grandmother returned to her chair and her knitting, with the white owl and the cat for company, and Grandfather and Hortense found a comfortable seat in Grandfather's big chair. There was a cheerful fire on the hearth, and Grandfather's study lamp cast a bright light upon his desk--but the bronze Buddha remained in a shadow, and the rows of books along the walls were scarcely visible. "When I was a young lad in Scotland," said Grandfather when Hortense was seated on his knee with her head upon his shoulder, "I had a close friend of my own age whose name was Dugald--Dugald Stewart. We grew up together, and when we became young men, we set off together to see the world and to make our fortunes. "We visited many strange and wonderful places and had many adventures, some of which I shall tell you about, perhaps. Our fortunes were up and down, usually down. We sought for pearls in the Indian Ocean and the South Seas, and for gold in Australia. We traded with the natives here, there, and everywhere, but our fortunes were still to be made, and it seemed we might spend our lives without being much better off than we were then.