‘Ah, that’s part of it! That,’ says Betty, ‘is where the fire and brimstone come in. That’s what makes her a ghost. It isn’t everybody can see through stone walls,’ says she, lowering her voice mysteriously, and glancing at the staring Jacky. ‘She had evidently the power to turn Mrs. Denis’s walls into glass! It’s very unlucky, Jacky, for ghosts to fall in love with people, and I’m sorry to say I think this one has developed a mad fancy for you.’ ‘She hasn’t!’ says Jacky, who is now extremely pale. ‘Circumstances point to it,’ says Betty, who is nothing if not a tease. ‘And when ghosts fall in love, they do dreadful things to people. Things like this!’ She has risen, and is now advancing on the stricken Jacky with her slender arms uplifted, and long fingers pointed downwards and arranged like claws. She has taken to a sort of prance, a high-stepping walk that brings her knees upwards and her toes outward, and she has worked her face out of all recognition in an abominable grin. All this taken together proves too much for Jacky, who, his face now visibly paler, descends precipitately upon Susan. Susan has been seeing to the comfort of her little Bonnie, and has therefore been ignorant of Betty’s flight of fancy until the moment when Jacky stumbles somewhat heavily against her, and looking up, she sees Betty’s diabolical pose. ‘Betty, don’t!’ says she, glancing back to Jacky’s face, which is, indeed, a mixture of pluck and abject terror. ‘Would you not warn him, then?’ says Betty reproachfully, returning, however, to her ordinary appearance, and making an aside at Bonnie, a pretence at shooting him with her first finger and thumb, that sends the delicate little creature into fits of laughter. ‘Poor old Jacky!’ returning to the charge. ‘It isn’t for nothing that ghosts reveal themselves. It is easy to see that this one has her eye on you!’ ‘She hasn’t,’ says Jacky again, who is on the point of tears. He is evidently not partial to ghosts. ‘And it wasn’t through a glass wall I saw her—it was——’ He stops dead short. ‘Yes?’ says Susan, still severely. ‘Do be quiet, Betty, and let him speak. It was——’ ‘Through the hole in the wall near the garden,’ confesses Jacky doggedly, but somewhat shamefacedly. ‘You see, it was through the wall, after all!’ says Betty, breaking into a delighted laugh. ‘She’ll get you, Jacky—she’ll get you yet.’ ‘I don’t think it is a very nice thing to peep through other people’s walls into their grounds,’ says Susan, more from the point of view that she is the eldest sister, and bound to say a word in season now and then, than from any feeling of horror at the act. All boys peep through holes in walls, when lucky enough to find them. ‘How would you like it,’ says she, ‘if you were found doing it?’ ‘But I wasn’t found,’ retorts Jacky sulkily.