"Same as. He's a son of Uncle Gif's half-brother, and I'm a daughter of Uncle's own sister, so it sort of evens up. Anyway, I like Cousin Rudolph, because he's such a good-looking young man, and he's promised to take me round New York some. That's why I'm so jealous of Miss Carnforth or any other girl." Vernie was so pretty that her chatter amused the whole crowd. She was brown-haired and brown-eyed, and somewhat of a browned complexion, by reason of much tennis and outdoor life at the school from which she had just been graduated. And after a summer spent among the Eastern resorts, she and her Uncle were to return to their Chicago home, where they had lived all of Vernie's orphaned life. Gifford Bruce idolized the girl and though often short and crabbed in his manner to others, he was never cross or stern to his dead sister's child. "What were you talking about when we came in?" Vernie asked, smiling at Milly. "You were all so in earnest, it must have been something important." "Of ghosts," answered Braye, looking at the pretty child. "Do you enjoy them?" "Oh, don't I!" cried Vernie. "Why, at school we just ate 'em up! Table tippings and all such things, as soon as lights were out!" "We don't mean that sort," said Eve. "We were talking seriously." "Count me out, then," laughed Vernie. "Our ghosts weren't a bit real. I did most of 'em myself, jogging the table, when the others didn't know it!" Eve's scarlet lips came together in a narrow line, but the others laughed at Vernie as she babbled on. "Yes, and we tried the Ouija board. I can make it say anything I want to." "Good for you, Kiddie," cried Braye, "I believe I like your notion of these things better than the ideas of the psychologists. It sounds a lot more fun!" "And comes nearer the truth," declared Mr. Bruce. "I've looked up these matters and I've read all the best and most authoritative books on the subjects. There are many writers more diffuse and circumstantial, but Andrew Lang sums up the whole situation in his able way. He says there are no ghosts, but there are hallucinations. And that explains all." "It doesn't to me," and Eve's beryl eyes took on a mystic, faraway look. "I, too, have read a lot of books----" "Scientific or psychic?" interrupted Mr. Bruce, acidly. "Psychical and Theosophic----" "Rubbish! The Theosophic bunch have been in the discard for years." "That's what I say," put in Milly, "the whole business is old-fashioned."