"Like Mrs. Buckham," suggested Tess.

A spasm of pain crossed the hospital matron's face, and she turned away for a moment. After a little she continued her story.

"And then the fire came so suddenly that it swallowed the house right up!"

"Oh!" gasped Dot.

"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Eland," whispered Tess, patting her arm.

"It was very dreadful," said the gray lady, softly. "Teeny and I were grabbed up by some men in a wagon, and the horses galloped us away to safety. But our poor mother and father were buried in the ruins of the house."

"And you saved the letters?" said Tess.

"But lost Teeny," said Mrs. Eland, sadly. "There was such confusion in the camp of the refugees that many families were separated. By and by I came East--and I brought these letters. But--but they do me no good now.

I can prove nothing by them. 'Corroborative evidence,' so the lawyers say, is lacking----

"Well, well, well!" she said, breaking off suddenly. "All that does not interest you little ones."

"So you couldn't give the letters to your Uncle Lem-u-el?" questioned Dot, careful to get the name right this time.

"I never could even see my Uncle Lemuel," said Mrs. Eland, with a sigh.

"I believe he knew I was searching for him during the last few years of his life; but he always kept out of my way."

"Oh! wasn't that bad of him!" cried Tess.

"I don't know. His end was most miserable. People said he must have at one time acc.u.mulated a great deal of money. He was supposed to be as rich a man as lived in Milton--richer than your Uncle Peter Stower. But he must have squandered it all in some way. He died finally in the Quoharis poorhouse. He did not belong in that town; but he wandered there in a storm and they took him in."

"And didn't they find lots of money in his clothes when he was dead?"

queried Dot, who had heard something about misers.

"Mercy, no! He had no money, I am quite sure," said the lady, confidently. "The old townfarm keeper over there tells me that Mr.

Lemuel Aden left nothing but some worthless papers and letters and a little memorandum book, or diary. I suppose they are hardly worth my claiming them. At least, I never have done so, and Uncle Lemuel died quite fifteen years ago."

After that Mrs. Eland had no more to say about Lemuel Aden for the time being, but tried to amuse her little visitors, as usual. And Tess never told that joke about Briggs, the baker.

This brings us, naturally, to the eve of All Saints, an occasion much given over to feasting and foolery. "When churchyards yawn--if they ever do yawn," suggested Neale, as he and the two oldest Corner House girls set forth on the crisp evening in question, to walk out to Carrie Poole's place.

"I guess folks yarn about them, more than the graves yawn," said Agnes, roguishly. "Remember the garret ghost, Ruth?"

"You mean what Dot thought was a goat?" laughed the older girl. "I believe you!" she went on, caught in the contagion of slang.

"That was before my time in Milton," said Neale, cheerfully. "But I have heard how you Corner House girls laid the ghost that had haunted the old place so long."

[Ill.u.s.tration: They saw two huge pumpkin lanterns grinning a welcome from the gateposts. Page 173]

"I believe Uncle Peter must have known what it really was," said Ruth, thoughtfully. "But it delighted him, I suppose, to have people talk about the old house, and be afraid to visit him. He was a recluse."

"And a miser, they say," Neale observed bluntly.

"I don't think we should say that," Ruth replied quickly. "Everybody tried to get money from Uncle Peter. Everybody but our mother and father, I guess. That is why he left most everything to us."

"Well," Agnes said, "they all declared he haunted the place himself after he died."

"That's a wicked story!" Ruth sharply exclaimed. "I don't believe there is such a thing as a ghost, anyway!"

"And you, going to a ghost party right now?" cried Neale, laughing.

"These will be play ghosts," returned Ruth.

"Oh, _will_ they? You just wait and see," chuckled the boy, for he and his close chum, Joe Eldred, were masters of ceremonies, and they had promised to startle Carrie and her guests with "real Hallowe'en ghosts."

Before the Corner House girls and their escort reached the top of the hill on which the Poole house stood they saw the two huge pumpkin lanterns grinning a welcome from the gateposts. There was a string of smaller Hallowe'en lanterns across the porch before the entrance to the house. And every time anybody pushed open the gate, a ghostly apparition with a glowing head rose up most astonishingly behind the porch railing to startle the visitor.

Neale and Joe had been at the house all the afternoon, putting up these and other bits of foolery. Joe's father, who was superintendent of the Milton Electric Light Company, allowed his son considerable freedom in the shops. Joe and Neale had brought out a good-sized battery outfit and the necessary wires and attachments; and when the girls stopped on the mat at the door to remove their overshoes, each got a distinct shock, to the great delight of the earlier guests who stood in the hall to observe the fun.

"A ghost pushed you, Ruth Kenway!" cried Carrie, from the stairs.

"Do you dare look down the well with a candle and see if you will see your future husband's face floating in the water, Aggie?" demanded Lucy Poole, Carrie's cousin.

"Don't want to see my future husband," declared Agnes. "It will be bad enough to see him in reality when the awful time arrives."

CHAPTER XVI

THE FIVE-DOLLAR GOLD PIECE

"Hush!"

"A deep, deep silence, please!"

"Don't crowd so close--don't, Mary Breeze! If there are ghosts I can't protect you from them," came in Eva Larry's shrill whisper. "I'm sure I've not been vaccinated against seeing spirits."

This was after all the visitors had arrived, had removed their wraps, had been ushered into the big double parlors and seated. Across the far end of the room was drawn a sheet, and the lights were very dim.

A figure in long cloak and conical cap, leaning on a long wand, appeared suddenly beside the curtain. A blue light seemed to glimmer faintly around the Hallowe'en figure and outline it.

"Oh!" gasped Lucy Poole, "there's the very Old Witch of them all, I do declare!"

"The Old Wizard, you mean," laughed Agnes, who knew that Neale O'Neil was hidden behind the long cloak and the false face. He looked quite as feminine in this rig as any witch ever does look.

"Silence!" commanded again the husky voice from behind the screen.

With some little bustle the party fell still. The Hallowe'en Witch raised the wand and rapped the b.u.t.t three times upon the little stand near by.

"Oh! oh! real spirits," gasped Eva. "They always begin with table-rappings, don't they?"