"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

With some little bustle the party fell still. The Hallowe'en Witch raised the wand and rapped the butt three times upon the little stand near by.

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

"Hush!" commanded the husky voice once more.

"This is a perverse and unbelieving generation," croaked the witch. "Ye all doubt black magic and white astrology, and ghostly visitations. I am sent by Those Who Fly By Night—at the head of whom flies the Witch of Endor—who commune with goblins and fays—I am sent to convert you all to the truth.

"Ha! Thunder! Lightning!"

The ears of the company were almost deafened and their eyes blinded by a startling crash like thunder behind the screen and a vivid flash of zig-zag light across it.

"See!" croaked the supposed hag. "Even Thunder and Lightning do my bidding. Now! Rain! Sleet! Advance!"

The wondering spectators began to murmur. An almost perfect imitation of dashing sleet against the window panes and rain pouring from the water-spouts followed. Joe Eldred, behind the scenes, certainly managed the paraphernalia borrowed from the Milton Opera House with good effect.

As the murmurs subsided the voice of the Hallowe'en Witch rose again:

"To prove to you our secret knowledge of all that goes on—even the innermost thoughts of your hearts—I will answer any question put to me—marvelously—in the twinkling of an eye. Watch the screen!"

Primed beforehand, one of the boys in the back of the room shouted a question. The witch whirled about and pointed to the screen. Letters of fire seemed to flash from the point of the wand and to cross the sheet, forming the words of a pertinent reply to the query that had been asked.

The girls laughed and applauded. The boys stamped and cheered.

Question followed question. Some were spontaneous and the answers showed a surprisingly exact knowledge of the questioners' private affairs, or else a happy gift at repartee. Of course, the illuminated writing was some trick of electricity; nevertheless it was both amusing and puzzling.

References to school fun, jokes in class-room, happenings known to most of those present who attended the Milton schools, suggested the most popular queries.

Suddenly Eva Larry's sharp voice rang through the room. Her question was distinctly personal, and it shocked some few of the listeners into silence.

"Who told on the basket ball team and got us all barred from taking part in the play?"

"Oh, Eva!" groaned Agnes, who sat beside her loyal, if unwise friend.

The witch's wand poised, seemed to hesitate longer than usual, and then the noncommittal answer flashed out:

The Traitor is Here!

There was a general shuffling of feet and murmur of surprise. The lights went up. The Hallowe'en Witch had disappeared and that part of the entertainment was over.

"I'd like to have seen Trix Severn's face when that last question was sprung," whispered Myra Stetson to Agnes.

"Oh! it was awful!" murmured the Corner House girl. "Why did you do it, Eva?" she demanded of the harum-scarum girl on her other side.

"Huh! do you s'pose I thought that all up by myself?" demanded Eva.

"Why! didn't you?"

"No, ma'am! Neale O'Neil gave it to me written on a piece of paper and told me when to shout it out. So now! I guess there's more than just us who have suspected that pussy-cat, Trix Severn."

"Oh, don't, girls, don't!" begged Agnes. "We haven't any proof—nor has Neale, I'm sure. I'll just tell him what I think about it."

But she had no opportunity of scolding her boy chum on this evening. He was so busy preparing the other tricks and frolics which followed that Agnes could scarcely say a word to him.

In the big front hall was a booth of black cloth, decorated with crescents, stars, and astronomical signs in gilt.

Some of the girls were paring apples in long "curls" and throwing the curls over their shoulders to see if the parings would form anything like an initial letter on the floor. It was something of a trick to get all the skin off the apple in one long, curling piece. But Agnes succeeded and threw the peeling behind her.

"I don't see as that's much of any thing," Eva said, reflectively. "Oh, Aggie, it's a U!"

"It's a me!" laughed the Corner House girl. "Then I'm going to be my own best friend. Hurrah!"

"No, little dunce; I mean it's the letter U," said Eva, squeezing her.

"I think it looks more like E, dear," returned Agnes. "So it must stand for Eva. You and I are going to be chums forever!"

Afterward Agnes remembered that U was an N upside down!

When the girls proposed going out to the spring-house and each looking down the well to see whose reflection would appear in the water in the light of a ghostly candle, Carrie's mother vetoed it.

"I guess not!" she said vigorously. "I'm not going to have candle-grease dripped down my well. Yes! I did it when I was a foolish girl—I know I did, Carrie. Your father had no business telling you. What he didn't tell you was that your grandfather was a week cleaning out the well, and it was right at the beginning of a long, dry spell."

"Who did you see in the well, Mother?" asked Carrie, roguishly.

"Never mind whom I saw. It wasn't your father, although he had begun to shine around me, even then," laughed Mrs. Poole.

Suddenly two of the girls screamed. A mysterious light had appeared in the black-cloth booth. The gilt signs upon it showed more plainly. There was a rustling noise, and then the flap of the booth was pushed back. The Hallowe'en Witch appeared in the opening.

"Money!" cried the witch. "Bright, golden coin. It's that for which all witches are supposed to sell themselves. See!"

Between thumb and finger the witch held up a shiny five-dollar gold piece. In the other hand was held a shallow pan of water.

"To gain gold one must cross water," intoned the witch, solemnly. "This gold piece is freely the property of whoever can take it out of the pan of water," and with a tinkle the five-dollar coin was dropped into the pan.

"The pan," said the witch, being careful not to turn so as to hide the pan, but, placing it on a taboret inside the tent, "remains in sight of all. One at a time ye may try to pick the coin out of the pan—one at a time. That all may have an equal chance, I will declare that as soon as one candidate gets the coin another gold piece will be deposited in the pan for the next person attempting the feat."

"Why, how silly!" cried Trix Severn, from the background. "If you want to give us each a counterfeit five dollars, why not hand it to us?"

"If such exchange is desired, our master, Mr. Poole, stands ready to exchange each coin secured by the neophytes for a perfectly good, new, five-dollar bill," proceeded the witch.

"There's your chance, Trix!" laughed one of the boys.

"Oh! he's only fooling," replied the hotel-keeper's daughter. She loved money.

"Each and every one who wishes may try," went on the witch. "But there is a condition."

"Oh!" muttered Trix. "Thought there was some string hitched to it."

"And you're right, there, Trix," murmured Eva Larry.

"Silence!" cried somebody.

"A condition," went on the Hallowe'en Witch. "That condition will be whispered in the ear of each candidate who tries to seize the coin."

"No, thank you! I won't try," cried Lucy Poole, laughing and shaking her curls. "When he goes to make believe whisper in your ear, he'll bite you! I wouldn't trust that old witch!"

The others laughed hilariously at this; but Trix Severn was pushing forward. If there was a gold piece to be given away, she wanted first chance at it—string, or no string.

"Keep your eyes on the pan!" cried the witch, waving empty hands in the air all about the pan and taboret, to show that there was "no flim-flam," as the boys called it. "Now! first neophyte step forward!"

"I don't believe he knows what that means," giggled Myra Stetson. "I don't."

But she could not step in before Trix. Miss Severn pushed to the front and was nearest to the master of ceremonies.

"Give me a chance!" she cried. "You're going to lose your old gold piece."

"It's a perfectly new one, Trixie," whispered somebody, shrilly. "It isn't old at all!"

Without a word the witch beckoned the girl inside the booth. The flap of it dropped and they were hidden. The light was cast from a dim, green globe hung at the apex of the little tent. It made a ghostly glow over all inside.

"Advance!" whispered the witch, with lips close to Trix Severn's pretty ear. "Advance, neophyte! The gold piece is yours for the taking. But only she who has no guilt and treachery upon her heart may seize the shining coin. If you are faithful to your friends, take the coin!"

Trix started and her pretty face was cast in an angry look as she glanced aside at the masquerader. But she made no reply save by her out-thrust hand which dived into the water.

Instantly the crowd outside heard a piercing scream from Trix Severn. She burst out of the tent, and, amid the laughter and jeers of her comrades, sought shelter in another room.

"Did you get the gold piece, Trix?" cried some.

"Divide with a fellow, will you?"

"Say! there are more tricks than are dreamed of in your philosophy, eh, Trix?" gibed Eva Larry.

And for that atrocious pun she was pushed forward to the tent, to be the next victim on the altar of the boys' perfectly harmless, though surprising joke.

Nobody was able to pick the gold piece out of the pan of water, thanks to the electric battery that Joe Eldred had so skillfully connected with it.

CHAPTER XVII

THE MYSTERIOUS LETTER

But Neale shut his lips on that. When Ruth was not by, however, he admitted to Agnes that he had borrowed from Mr. Marks the letter that gentleman had received in reference to the strawberry raid. Neale was going to show it to Mr. Bob Buckham.

"I told Mr. Marks there was some funny business about it. I knew Mr. Buckham never intended to report you girls to the principal. He didn't even know your names. Mr. Marks told me to find out about it and report to him. He knows that I once worked for Bob Buckham and that he's a friend of mine."

"Oh, Neale!" groaned Agnes. "That won't help me."

"Help you to what?"

"To get a chance to act in the play," sighed the girl. "I did take the berries! So did the other girls. We deserve our punishment. Mr. Marks won't change his mind."

But Neale was not altogether sure of that. There were things happening just then which pointed to several changes in the character parts of The Carnation Countess. It was being discovered by the director and stage manager that many of the characters should be recast. Some of the girls and boys to whom the parts had been allotted could not possibly compass them.

This was particularly plain in the case of Innocent Delight and some others of the female rôles. Some of the very brightest girls in the high school were debarred from taking part in the play because of Mr. Marks' ruling against the first basket ball team and some of their friends.

Neale O'Neil determined to see Mr. Bob Buckham as soon as possible. Another rehearsal would occur on this Saturday afternoon; so Friday evening it was arranged that the interests of the Corner House girls should be divided for one Saturday, at least.

Tess and Dot were going to the hospital in the forenoon. Uncle Rufus had coaxed many fall flowers into late blooming this year and the little girls were to carry great bunches of asters and garden-grown chrysanthemums to decorate the children's ward for Thanksgiving, which came the very next Thursday.

Ruth had shopping to do and must confer with Mr. Howbridge about a Thanksgiving treat for the Meadow Street tenants. "A turkey for each family—and perhaps vegetables," she declared. "So many of them are foreigners. They have learned to celebrate our Fourth of July—why not our Thanksgiving?"

Therefore, it was easy for Neale and Agnes to obtain permission to drive out to Strawberry Farm. Neale got a horse and runabout from the stableman for whom he occasionally drove, and Agnes was proud, indeed, when she came out in her furs and pretty new hat, with the fur-topped boots she had just purchased, and stepped into the carriage beside her friend.

Tom Jonah looked longingly after them from the yard, but Agnes shook her head. "Not to-day, old fellow," she told the good old dog. "We're going to travel too fast for you," for the quick-stepping horse was anxious to be on the road.

They departed amid the cheers of the whole family—and Sammy Pinkney, who threw a big cabbage-stalk after them for good luck and yelled his derisive compliments.

"Fresh kid!" muttered Neale.

"I'd like to spank that boy," sighed Agnes. "There never was so bad a boy since the world began, I believe!"

"I expect that's what the neighbors said about little Cain and Abel," chuckled Neale, recovering his good-nature at once.

"Well," said Agnes, "Sammy's worse than little Tommy Rooney, who ran away from Bloomingsburg to kill Indians."

"Did he kill any?" asked Neale.

"Not here in Milton," Agnes said, laughing. "But he came near getting drowned in the canal."

They drove on by the road that led past Lycurgus Billet's. The tumbled-down house looked just as forlorn as ever, its broken windows stuffed with old hats and gunny-sacks and the like, its broken steps a menace to the limbs of those who went in and out.

Mrs. Lycurgus was picking up chips around the chopping-block and was not averse to stopping for a chat. "No, Lycurgus ain't here," she drawled. "He's gone huntin'. This yere's the first day the law's off'n deer an' Lycurgus 'lows ter git his share of deer-meat. He knows where there's a lick," and she chuckled in anticipation of a full larder.

"Sue? Naw, she ain't here nuther. Mrs. Buckham—her that's the invalid—has sorter took a fancy ter Sue. She's been a-stoppin' there at that Strawberry Farm, right smart now.

"You goin' there? Then you'll likely see her. She likes it right well; but she's a wild young 'un. I dunno's she'll stand it for long."

"Don't you miss her?" asked Agnes, as Neale prepared to drive on.

"Miss Sue? My soul!" ejaculated Mrs. Billet, showing a ragged row of teeth in a broad smile. "Dunno how I could miss one young 'un! There's a-plenty others."

At the Buckham farm little Sue Billet was much in evidence. She was tagging right after the old farmer all the time, and it was plain whose companionship it was that made the half-wild child contented away from home.

The farmer was hearty in his greeting, and he insisted that the visitors go right in "to see marm."

"Wipe yer feet on the door-mat," advised the old man. "Me and Sue haster, or else Posy'll put us out. I never did see a gal with sech a mania for cleanin' floors as that Posy gal."

The invalid in her bower of bright-colored wools welcomed Agnes warmly. "Here's my pretty one! I declare you are a cure for sore eyes," she cried. "And how are the sisters? Why didn't they come to-day?"

Neale remained outside to speak with Mr. Buckham for some minutes. The old farmer, with his silver-bowed spectacles on his nose looked hard at the letter Neale had brought.

"Not that I kin read it," he said ruefully, "or could if it was writ in letters of gold. But I kin see it ain't marm's hand of write—no, sir."

"I was very sure of that," Neale said quickly. "Let me read it to you, sir. You see it's written on your own stationery."

"I see that," admitted the farmer. "Oh, yes; I see that."

Neale began:

"'Mr. Curtis G. Marks,

"'Principal Milton High School.

"'Dear Sir: Mr. Robert Buckham wishes to bring to your attention the fact that on May twenty-third last, a party of your girls, including the members of the first basket ball team, on their way home from Fleeting, were delayed by an accident to the car, right beside his strawberry field; and that the girls named below entered the field without permission, and picked and ate a quantity of berries, beside destroying some vines. Mr. Buckham wishes to call your serious attention to the matter and may yet take steps to punish the culprits himself.'"

Then followed the names of all the girls whom Mr. Marks considered it his duty to punish. There was no signature at all to the letter; but it purported to come from the old farmer, and to be written at his instance.

"I dunno as ye kin call it forgery," muttered Mr. Buckham; "but it's blamed mean—that's what it is! It gives me a black eye with these gals, and the gals a black eye with the teacher. Sho! it's a real mean thing to do."

"But who did it?" demanded Neale, earnestly.

"Ya-as! That's the question," returned Mr. Bob Buckham. "If we knowed that——"

"Are you sure we don't know it?"

The old man eyed him contemplatively. "You suspect somebody," he said.

"Well! and so do you," declared the boy, warmly. "Only you've got some evidence, and we haven't."

"Humph!"

"You must know who would have a chance to get your letter paper and write such a letter as that?"

"Humph!" repeated the old man, reflectively.

"I don't know how that girl came to be out here. But you know you saw her—and like enough she spoke of the strawberry raid—and she went in to see Mrs. Buckham—and she saw the writing paper——"

All the time that Neale was drawling out these phrases he was watching the old farmer's grim face keenly for some flicker of emotion. But it was just as expressionless as a face of stone.

"It's fine weather, we're having, Neale," said Mr. Buckham, finally.

At that the boy lost his temper. "I tell you it's a mean shame!" he cried. "Poor Aggie can't act in that old play, and she wants to. And Trix Severn is spoiling the whole show, and she oughtn't to be allowed to. And if she was the cause of making all these other girls get punished, she ought to be shown up."

"Let's see that letter agin, son," said the old man, quietly. He peered at the handwriting intently for a minute. Then he said, with perfectly sober lips but a twinkle in his eye:

"Ye sure marm didn't write it?"

"Just as sure as I can be! I know her handwriting," cried Neale. "You're fooling."

"So all handwriting don't look alike, heh?" was the farmer's final comment, and he returned the letter to the boy's care.

Neale looked startled for a moment. Then he folded the letter carefully and put it away in his pocket. On the way home he said to Agnes:

"Say, Aggie!"

"What is it?"

"Can you get me a sample of Trix Severn's handwriting?"

"What?" gasped Agnes.

"Just something she's written—a note, or an exercise, or something."

Agnes stared at him in growing horror. "Neale O'Neil!" she cried.

"Well?" he demanded gruffly.

"You're going to try to put that letter upon her—you are going to try to prove that she made all this trouble."

"Well! what if?" he asked, still without looking at her.

"Never! Never in this world will I let you do it," said Agnes, firmly.

"Huh! And I was only trying to see if there wasn't some way out of the mess for you," said Neale, as though offended.

"I wouldn't want to get out of it—even if you could help me—at such a price. Because she may have been a tale-bearer, do you think I'd be one?"

"Not even to get a chance to act in The Carnation Countess?" asked Neale, with a sudden smile.

"No! And—and that wouldn't help me, anyway!" she added, quite despairingly.

CHAPTER XVIII

MISS PEPPERILL AND THE GRAY LADY

"Ah! So it is Theresa and her little sister," said the teacher. "Humph! A child who mispronounces the word so badly as that will never get to the institution itself without help. Let me carry those flowers, Dorothy. I am going past the Women's and Children's Hospital myself."

"You can carry the flowers, Miss Pepperill," said the smallest Corner House girl, "if you want to. But I want Mrs. Eland to know I brought some as well as Tess."

The red-haired lady laughed—rather a short, brusk laugh, that might have been a cough.

"So you are going to see your Mrs. Eland, are you, Theresa?" she asked her pupil.

"Yes, Miss Pepperill. We always see Mrs. Eland when we go to the hospital," said Tess. "But we like to see the children, too."

"Yes," said Dot; "there is a boy there with only one arm. Do you suppose they'll grow a new one on him?"

That time Miss Pepperill did laugh in good earnest; but Tess despaired. "Goodness, Dot! they don't grow arms on folks."

"Why not?" demanded the inquisitive Dorothy. "Our teacher was reading to us how new claws grow on lobsters when they lose 'em fighting. But perhaps that boy wasn't fighting when he lost his arm."

"For pity's sake! I should hope not," observed Miss Pepperill. In a minute they came in sight of the hospital, and she added, in her very tartest tone of voice: "I shall go in with you, Theresa. I should like to meet your Mrs. Eland."

"Yes, ma'am," Tess replied dutifully, but Dot whispered:

"I don't like the way she says 'Theresa' to you, Tess. It—it sounds just as though you were going to have a tooth pulled."

Miss Pepperill had stalked ahead with Dot's bunch of flowers. Dot did not much mind having the flowers carried for her; but she did not propose letting anybody at the hospital make a mistake as to who donated that particular bouquet. As they went in she said to the porter, who was quite well acquainted with the two smallest Corner House girls by this time:

"Good morning, Mr. John. We are bringing some flowers for the children's ward, Tess and me. That lady with—with the light hair, is carrying mine."

Fortunately the red-haired school teacher did not hear this observation on the part of Dot.

Half-way down the corridor, Mrs. Eland chanced to come out of one of the offices to meet the school teacher, face to face. "Oh! I beg your pardon," said the little, gray lady—for she dressed in that hue in the house as well as on the street. "Did you wish to see me?"

The matron was small and plump; the teacher was tall and lean. The rosy, pleasant face of Mrs. Eland could not have been put to a greater contrast than with the angular and grim countenance of the bespectacled Miss Pepperill.

The latter seemed, for the moment, confused. She was not a person easily disturbed in any situation, it would seem; but she was almost bashful as the little matron confronted her.

"I—I—— Really, are you Mrs. Eland?" stammered the school teacher.

"Yes," said the quietly smiling gray lady.

"I—I have heard Theresa, here, speak so much of you——" She actually fell back upon Tess for support! "Theresa! introduce me to Mrs. Eland," she commanded.

"Oh, yes, Mrs. Eland," said the cordial Tess. "I wanted you to meet Miss Pepperill. You know—she's my teacher."

"Oh! who wanted you to learn the succession of the rulers of England?" said Mrs. Eland, laughing, with a sweet, mellow tone.

"Yes, ma'am. The sovereigns of England," Tess said.

"Of course!" Mrs. Eland added:

"That old rhyme!" Miss Pepperill said, hastily, recovering herself somewhat. "You taught it to Theresa?"

"I wrote it out for her," confessed Mrs. Eland. "I could never forget it. I learned it when I was a very little girl."

"Indeed?" said Miss Pepperill, almost gasping the ejaculation. "So did I."

"That was some time ago," Mrs. Eland said, in her gentle way. "My mother taught me."

"Oh! did she?" exclaimed the other lady.

"Yes. She was an English woman. She had been a governess herself in England."

"Indeed!" Again the red-haired teacher almost barked the expression. She seemed to labor under some strong emotion. Tess noted the strange change in Miss Pepperill's usual manner as she spoke to the matron.

"I think it must have been my mother who taught me," the teacher said, in the same jerky way. "I'm not sure. Or—perhaps—I picked it up from hearing it taught to somebody else.

Not easily forgotten when once learned."

"Very true," Mrs. Eland said quietly. "I believe my little sister learned it listening to mother and me saying it over and over."

"Ah! yes," Miss Pepperill observed. "Your sister? I suppose much younger than you?"

"Oh, no; only about four years younger," said Mrs. Eland, sadly. "But I lost her when we were both very young."

"Oh! ah!" was Miss Pepperill's abrupt comment. "Death is sad—very sad," and she shook her head.

At the moment somebody spoke to the matron and called her away. Otherwise she might have stopped to explain that her sister had been actually lost, and that she had no knowledge as to whether she were dead or alive.

The red-haired teacher and the two little Corner House girls went on to the children's ward.

CHAPTER XIX

A THANKSGIVING SKATING PARTY

"Well! he gave them the parts," snapped Eva. "I'm not sorry for him!"

The musical director was a patient man; but he saw the play threatened with ruin by the stupidity of a few. If his voice grew sharp and his manner impatient before the rehearsal was over, there was little wonder.

The choruses, and even the little folks' parts, went splendidly—with snap and vigor. Some of the bigger girls walked through their rôles as though they were in a trance.

"I declare I should expect more animation and a generally better performance from marionettes," cried the despairing professor.

Mr. Marks came in, saw how things were going, and whispered a few words to Professor Ware. The latter fairly threw up his hands.

"I give it up for to-day," he cried. "You all act like a set of puppets. Pray, pray, young ladies! try to get into the spirit of your parts by next Friday. Otherwise, I shall be tempted to recommend that the whole play be given up. We do not want to go before the Milton public and make ourselves ridiculous."

Neale said to Agnes as he walked home with her: "Why don't you learn the part of Innocent Delight? I bet you couldn't do it so much better than Trix, after all."

She looked at him with scorn. "Learn it?" she repeated. "I know it by heart—and all the other girl's parts, too. I've acted them all out in my room before the mirror." She laughed a little ruefully. "Lots of good it does me, too! And Ruth says I will have to sleep in another room, all by myself, if I don't stop it.

"If I couldn't do the part of Innocent Delight better than Trix Severn——"

She left the remainder of the observation to his imagination.

The Thanksgiving recess was to last only from Wednesday afternoon till the following Monday morning. Friday and Saturday would be taken up with rehearsals—mostly because of the atrociously bad acting of some of the girls.

The holiday itself, however, was free. Dinner was to be a joyous affair at the old Corner House. There were but two guests expected: Mr. Howbridge and Neale. Mr. Howbridge, their uncle's executor, and the Kenway sisters' guardian, was a bachelor, and he felt a deep interest in the Corner House girls. Of course, Agnes begged to have Neale come.

In the Stower tenements in Meadow Street there was great rejoicing, too. Mr. Howbridge's own automobile had taken around the Thanksgiving baskets and the lawyer's clerk delivered them and made a brief speech at each presentation. The Corner House girls could not attend, for they were too busy in school and (at least, three of them) with their parts in the play. But Sadie Goronofsky reported the affair to Tess in these expressive words:

"Say! you'd oughter seen my papa's wife and the kids. You'd think they'd never seen anything to eat before—an' we always has a goose Passover week. My! it was fierce! But there was so much in that basket that it made 'em all fair nutty. You'd oughter seen 'em!"

Mrs. Kranz, the "delicatessen lady," as Dot called her, and Joe Maroni, helped fill the baskets. They were the two "rich tenants" on the Stower estate, and the example of the Corner House girls in generosity had its good effect upon the lonely German woman and the voluble Italian fruiterer.

There were other needy people whom the Corner House girls remembered at this season with substantial gifts. Petunia Blossom, and her shiftless husband and growing family, looked to "gran'pap's missus" for their Thanksgiving fowl. And this year Seneca Sprague came in for a share of the Corner House bounty.

Since the fatal day when Billy Bumps had secured a share of the prophet's generous thatch, Ruth had felt she owed Seneca something. The boys plagued him as he walked the streets in his flapping linen duster and broken straw hat; and older people were unkind enough to make fun of him.

Seneca followed the scriptural command to the Jews regarding swine—and more, for he ate no meat of any kind. But the plump and luscious pig was indeed an abomination to Seneca.

One day when Ruth went to market she saw a crowd of the market loiterers teasing Seneca Sprague, the man having ventured among them to peddle his tracts.

The girl saw a smeary-aproned young butcher slip up behind the old man and drop a pig's tail into one of the pockets of his flapping duster.

To the bystanders it was a harmless joke; to Seneca, Ruth knew, it would mean infamy and contamination. He would be months purging his conscience of the stain of "touching the unclean thing," as he expressed it.

The girl went up to Seneca and spoke to him. She had a heavy basket of provisions and she asked the prophet to carry it home for her, which he did with good grace.

When they arrived at the old Corner House Ruth told him if he would remove the linen coat she would sew up a tear in the back for him; and in this way she smuggled the "porker's appendage," as Neale O'Neil called it, out of the prophet's pocket.

"And you ought to see the inside of that shack of his down on Bimberg's wharf," Neale O'Neil said. "I got a peep at it one day. You know it's an old office Bimberg used to use before he moved up town, and it's attached to his store-shed, and at the far end.

"Seneca's got a little stove, and a cupboard, a cot to sleep on, a chair to sit in, and the walls are lined with bookshelves filled with old musty books."

"Books!" exclaimed Agnes. "Does he read?"

"Why, in his way, he's quite erudite," declared Neale, smiling. "He reads Josephus and the Apocrypha, and believes them quite as much inspired as the rabbinical books of the Old Testament, I believe. Most of his other books relate to the prophetical writings of the old patriarchs.

"He believes that the Pilgrims were descended from the lost tribes of Israel and that God allowed them to people this country and raise up a nation which should be a refuge and example to all the peoples of the earth."

"Why! I think that is really a wonderful thought," Ruth said.

"He's strong on patriotism; and his belief in regard to the divine direction of George Washington does nobody any harm. If everybody believed as Seneca does, we would all have a greater love of country, that's sure."

Ruth sent down to the little hut on the river dock a basket of such good things as she knew Seneca Sprague would appreciate.

"I'd love to send him warm underwear," she sighed.

"And a cap and mittens," Agnes put in. "He gives me the shivers when I see him pass along this cold weather, with his duster flapping."

"Thank goodness he has put on socks and wears carpet slippers," said Ruth. "He believes it is unhealthy to wear many clothes. And he is healthy enough—goodness knows!"

"But clothes are awfully comfortable," said the luxury-loving Dot.

"Right you are, Dottums," agreed Agnes. "And I'd rather be comfortable than so terribly healthy."

The weather had become intensely cold during the past fortnight. Steady frost had chained the river and ponds. There had been no snow, but there was fine skating by Thanksgiving.

On the morning of the holiday the two older Corner House girls and Neale O'Neil set off to meet a party of their school friends for a skating frolic on the canal and river. They met at the Park Lock, and skated down the solidly frozen canal to where it debouched into the river.

Milton young folks were out in full force on this Thanksgiving morning, despite the keen wind blowing from the northwest. Jack Frost nipped fingers and toes; but there were huge bonfires burning here and there along the bank, and at these the skaters could go ashore to warm themselves when they felt too cold.

River traffic, of course, was over for the season. The docks were for the most part deserted. Some reckless small boys built a fire of shavings and old barrels right on Bimberg's dock.

When the first tar-barrel began to crackle, the sparks flew. Older skaters saw the danger; but when they rushed to put the fire out, it was beyond control. The Corner House girls and Neale O'Neil were among the first to see the danger. Seneca Sprague's shack was then afire.

"Never mind. The old man's up town," cried one boy. "If it burns up it won't be much loss."

"And it will burn before the fire department gets here," said one of the girls.

"Poor Seneca! I expect his poor possessions are treasures to him," said Ruth.

"Cracky!" ejaculated Neale, suddenly, as the flames mounted higher. "What about the poor old duffer's books?"

"Oh, Neale!" gasped Ruth. "And they mean so much to him."

"Pshaw!" observed one of the other boys. "They're not really worth anything, are they?"

"Whether they are or not, they are valuable to Seneca," Ruth repeated.

"Well, goodness!" was the ejaculation of a third boy. "I wouldn't risk going into that shack if they were worth a million. See! the whole end of it is ablaze!"

CHAPTER XX

NEALE'S ENDLESS CHAIN

"Let's try it!" exclaimed Neale.

"Oh, Neale, you wouldn't!" gasped Agnes, who had heard the conversation.

"Of course he wouldn't," scoffed Clarence. "He's only bluffing. Father used to let us play around the old shack before Seneca got it to live in. And I found the trap. But I never said anything about it."

Neale looked serious, but he said: "Just show me how to reach it, Clarry."

"Why," said Clarence, "the ice is solid underneath the wharf. You can see it is. Skate right under, if you want," and he laughed again, believing Neale in fun.

"Show me," said the white-haired boy.

"Not much I won't! Why, the wharf boards are afire already, and the sparks will soon be raining down there."

"Show me," demanded Neale. "If there is a trap there——"

"Oh, Neale!" Agnes cried again. "Don't!"

"Don't you be a little goose, Aggie," said the earnest boy. "Come on, Clarry."

"Oh, I don't want to," said the other boy, seeing that Neale was in earnest now. "We'll get burned."

Neale grabbed his hand and whirled him around, and they shot in toward the burning wharf, whether Clarence would or no!

"Hey, boys, keep away from there!" shouted a man from the next dock. "You'll get burned."

"Oh, Neale, come back!" wailed Agnes.

"You hear, Neale O'Neil?" gasped Clarence, struggling in the bigger boy's grasp. "I don't want to go!"

"Show me where the trap is," said the boy who had been brought up in a circus. "Then you can run if you like. I'm not afraid."

"I am!" squealed Clarence Bimberg.

But he was forced by the stronger Neale to skate under the burning wharf. They bumped about for half a minute among the piles and the broken ice. They could hear the flames crackling overhead, and the smoke puffed in between the planks. The black ice was solid and there was light enough to see fairly well.

"There! There!" shrieked the frightened Clarence. "You can see it now, Neale! Let me go!"

It did not look like a trap-door to Neale. Yet some short, rotting steps led up out of the frozen water to the flooring of the old wharf. The moment he essayed to climb these steps on his skates, Clarence broke away and shot out from under the burning dock.

Neale was too determined to reach the interior of Seneca Sprague's shack to save the old prophet's books, to bother about the defection of his schoolmate. If Joe Eldred had only been at hand, he would have stood by!

"Oh, Neale! can you open it?" quavered a voice behind and below him.

Neale almost tumbled backward from the steps, he was so amazed. He looked down to see Agnes' rosy, troubled face turned up to his gaze.

"For pity's sake! get out of here, Aggie," he begged.

"I won't!" she returned, tartly.

"You'll get burned."

"So will you."

"But aren't you afraid?" the boy demanded, in growing wonder.

"Of course I am!" she gasped. "But I can stand it if you can."

"Oh, me!"

"Hurry up!" cried Agnes. "I can help carry out some of the books."

Meanwhile Neale had been pounding on the boards overhead. Suddenly two of them lifted a little.

"I've got it!" yelled Neale, in delight, and above the crackling of the flames and the confusion of other sounds without.

He burst up the rickety, old trap with his shoulders, and was met immediately by a stifling cloud of smoke. The interior of Seneca Sprague's shack was filled with the pungent vapor, although the flames were still on the outside.

"Don't get burned, Neale!" cried Agnes, coughing below from a rift of smoke, as the boy climbed into the little room.

"You better go away," returned Neale, in a muffled voice.

"I'll take an armful of books when I do go—if you'll hand 'em down to me," cried his girl chum.

"Oh, Aggie! if you get hurt Ruth will never forgive me," cried Neale, really troubled about the Corner House girl's presence in this place of danger.

"I tell you to give me some of those books, Neale O'Neil!" cried Agnes. "If you don't I'll come up in there and get them."

"Oh, don't be in such a hurry!" returned Neale.

He came to the smoky opening with his arms full and began to descend the steps, which creaked under his weight. He slipped on the skates which he had had no time to remove, and came down with a crash, sitting upon the lowest step. But he did not loose his hold on the books.

"Oh, Neale! are you hurt?" Agnes demanded.

"Only in my dignity," growled the boy, grimly.

Agnes began to giggle at that; but she grabbed the books from him. "Go back and get some more—that's a good boy!" she cried, and, whirling about, shot out from under the wharf.

The worried Ruth, who had not seen the first of this adventure, was standing near. Agnes deposited the volumes at her sister's feet.

"Look out for them, Ruthie!" Agnes cried. "Neale's going to get them all."

With this reckless promise she sped back under the burning wharf. Water was pouring upon the goods' shed now, freezing almost as fast as it left the hose-pipes, but the firemen had not reached the little shack.

Joe Eldred and some of the other boys reached the scene of Ruth's trouble and quickly understood the situation. If Neale O'Neil wanted to save Seneca Sprague's books, of course they would help him—not, as Joe said, that they "gave a picayune for the crazy old duffer."

"Form a chain, boys! form a chain!" commanded Neale's muffled voice from inside the burning shack, when he learned who was below. And this the crowd did, passing the armfuls of books back and out from under the wharf as fast as Neale could gather them and hand them down.

Agnes found herself put aside when Joe and his comrades got to work. But they praised her pluck, nevertheless.

"Those Corner House girls are all right!" was the general comment.

Poor Seneca came running to the end of a neighboring dock and took a flying leap—linen duster, carpet slippers, and all—down upon the ice. He was determined at first to get to his shack on the wharf, for he did not see what the boys were doing for him.

Men in the crowd ran to hold the poor old prophet back from what would likely have been his doom. He screamed anathemas upon them until they led him to where Ruth stood and showed him the great heap of books. Then almost immediately he became calm.

CHAPTER XXI

THE CORNER HOUSE THANKSGIVING

At the far end of the long board, covered with the best old damask the house afforded, and laid with the heavy, sterling plate that Unc' Rufus tended so lovingly, and the cut glass of old-fashioned pattern, was silver-haired Mr. Howbridge. He was a man very precise in his dress, given to the niceties of the toilet in every particular. He wore rimless glasses perched on his aristocratic beak of a nose, a well cared-for mustache much darker than his hair, and had very piercing eyes.

On his right was prim Aunt Sarah—Aunt Sarah, who never seemed to belong to the family, who lived so self-centered an existence, but who was sure to have her meddling finger in everything that went on in the old Corner House, especially if it was desired that she should not.

Aunt Sarah glared across the table at a tall, lean, ascetic-looking man in a rusty, old-fashioned, black, tail coat that was a world too wide for him across the shoulders, and with his sleek, long hair parted very carefully in the middle, and falling below the high collar of the coat.

Those who had never seen Seneca Sprague save in his flapping duster and straw hat, would scarcely have recognized him now.

Ruth, after the fire, when the prophet had been made to understand that all his possessions for which he really cared were saved, had induced him to come home with them to eat the Thanksgiving feast.

"It is fitting that we should give thanks—yea, verily," agreed Seneca, his mind rather more muddled than usual by the excitement of the fire. "I saw the armies of Armageddon advancing with flame-tipped spears and flights of flashing arrows. They were all—all—aimed to overwhelm me. But their hands were stayed—they could not prevail against me. Thank you, young man," he added, briskly, to Neale O'Neil. "You have a pretty wit, and by it you have saved my library—my books that could not be duplicated. I have the only Apocrypha extant with notes by the great Swedenborg. Do you know the life of George Washington, young man?"

"Pretty well, sir, thank you," said Neale, gravely.

"It is well. Study it. That great being who sired our glorious country, is yet to come again. And he will purge the nation with fire and cleanse it with hyssop. Verily, it shall come to pass in that day——"

"But we mustn't keep Mrs. MacCall waiting for us, Mr. Sprague," Ruth had interrupted him by saying. "You can tell us all about it later."

They had bundled him into a carriage near the burned dock, to hide his torn duster and wild appearance, and had brought him to the old Corner House—Ruth and Agnes and Neale. There he was soon quieted. Neale helped him remove the traces of the struggle he had had with those who kept him from going into the fire, and likewise helped him dress for dinner.

Uncle Peter Stower's ancient wardrobe furnished the most of Seneca's holiday garb. "Mr. Stower was a meaty man," the prophet said, in some scorn. "His girth should have been upon his conscience, for verily he lived for the greater part of his life on the fat of the land. His latter days were lean ones, it is true; but they could not absolve him from his youthful gastronomic sins."

Ruth had some fear that the odd, old fellow might make trouble at the table; but Seneca Sprague had not always lived the untamed life he now did. He had been well brought up, and had associated with the best families of Milton and the county in his younger days.

Mr. Howbridge was surprised to find Seneca Sprague sitting in the ancient parlor of the old Corner House when he arrived—an unfriendly room which was seldom opened by the girls. But the lawyer shook hands with Seneca and told him how glad he was to hear that his library had been saved from the fire.

"One may say by a miracle," the prophet declared solemnly. "As Elijah was fed by the raven in the wilderness, so was my treasure cared for in time of stress."

He talked after that quite reasonably, and when the girls in their pretty dresses fluttered to their seats about the table, and with Neale O'Neil filled them all, the company being complete, Ruth, looked to Seneca to ask a blessing.

His reverent grace, spoken humbly, was most fitting. Linda opened the door. A great breath of warm, food-laden air rushed in. Uncle Rufus appeared, proudly bearing the great turkey, browned beautifully and fairly bursting with tenderness and—dressing!

"Oh-ee!" whispered ecstatically, the smallest Corner House girl. "He looks so noble! Do—do you s'pose, Tess, that it will hurt him when Uncle Rufus carves?"

"My goodness!" exclaimed Neale, "it will hurt us if he doesn't carve the turk. I couldn't imagine any greater punishment than to sit here and taste the other good things and renege on that handsome bird."

But Seneca Sprague did not hear this comment. He ate heartily of the plentiful supply of vegetables; but he would not taste the turkey or the suet pudding.

It was a merry feast. They sat long over it. Uncle Rufus set the great candelabra on the table and by the wax-light they cracked nuts and drank sweet cider, and the younger ones listened to the stories of their elders.

Even Aunt Sarah livened up. "My soul and body!" she croaked, with rather a sour smile, it must be confessed, "I wonder what Peter Stower would say to see me sitting here. Humph! He couldn't keep me out of my home forever, could he?"

But nobody made any reply to that statement.