Chapter XXV: Laying the Ghost

Mr. Howbridge came by request to the Corner House the next morning. Ruth had slept all night with the papers found in the old secretary under her pillow.

Mr. Howbridge came into the dining-room where the four Corner House girls were assembled, smiling and evidently in right good humor. “I understand you have made a wonderful discovery, Miss Kenway?” he said.

“It was Aunt Sarah,” said Agnes, excitedly. “_She_ knew where the papers were.”

“Indeed?” said the lawyer, interested.

“We have found some of Uncle Peter’s papers, that is sure,” said Ruth. “And among them is one that I think must be the will you spoke of.”

“Good! we shall hope it is the paper we have been looking for,” said Mr. Howbridge, accepting the packet Ruth handed him. “And _I_ have made a discovery, too.”

“What is that, sir?” asked Ruth, politely.

“It refers to Mrs. Treble’s claim to the estate of Mr. Peter Stower.”

“If little Lillie bears any relationship to Uncle Peter, she must have her just share of the estate. We could agree to nothing else,” Ruth hastened to say.

“Oh, Ruth!” exclaimed Agnes.

Mr. Howbridge adjusted his glasses and looked at Ruth quizzically. “Miss Kenway,” he said, “you are a remarkable girl. Lillie Treble is the daughter of John Augustus Treble, without a doubt. _His_ mother went west from Milton, years ago, as is claimed. But she was _not_ Peter Stower’s sister.”

“Oh, goody!” ejaculated Agnes, clapping her hands.

“Who was she?” asked Ruth.

Mr. Howbridge laughed softly. “She was the sister of a man named Peter _Stover_. The names are similar, but there is a difference of one letter—and many other differences, it seems. Peter Stover was a poor man all his days. He was an ‘odd job’ man most of his life, working about the farms on the outskirts of Milton, until he grew infirm. He died last winter at the poorfarm.

“Mrs. Bean, even, remembers the name right now. These Trebles evidently heard of the wealth of your Uncle Peter, and thought he was _their_ Uncle Peter. The names were so much alike, you see.”

“Then—then Mrs. Treble and Lillie have no claim upon Uncle Peter’s estate at all?” asked Ruth.

“No more than the Man in the Moon,” said Mr. Howbridge, still smiling.

“And you know _he_ isn’t any relation,” whispered Tess, to Dot, with great importance.

“The poor things!” Ruth sighed. “Whatever will they do?”

“Why, Ruth Kenway!” exclaimed Agnes, in great excitement. “What are you thinking of? I should think you had done enough for them.”

Ruth only looked at her, and went on talking to the lawyer. “You see, sir,” she said, “they are quite penniless. I know, for Mrs. Treble broke down and cried about it last night, when I read to her the provisions of what I supposed to be Uncle Peter’s will.

“She spent the last money she had in getting here from Ypsilanti. She has thoroughly believed that Lillie was to come into the money. Now, what _can_ she do?”

“Go back to Ypsilanti,” put in Agnes, sharply.

“I wonder if her relatives will take her in again if she goes back?” said Ruth slowly.

“Ahem!” said Mr. Howbridge, clearing his throat. “I have been in correspondence with a Mr. Noah Presley, her brother-in-law. He says he was opposed to her coming east without knowing more of the situation here and her own rights. Now he says she and Lillie may come back, if——wait! I will read you exactly what he says,” and Mr. Howbridge drew forth the letter in question. He cleared his throat again and read:

“‘Tell Emily she can come back here if she wants, providing she’ll mind her own business and keep that dratted young one of hers from turning the house upside down. I can’t pay her fare to Ypsilanti, but I won’t refuse her a home.’”

“You can easily see what _he_ thinks of them,” declared Agnes, grimly.

“Do hush, dear,” begged Ruth. “Then you will pay their fare back for them, will you not, Mr. Howbridge?” pursued Ruth. “And we shall see that they are comfortably clothed. I do not think they have _many_ frocks.”

“You are really a very remarkable girl, Miss Kenway,” said Mr. Howbridge again. That was the settlement of the Trebles’ affairs. Two weeks later the Corner House girls saw the Ypsilanti lady and her troublesome little girl off on the train for the west.

At this particular Monday morning conference, the lawyer made it clear to the Kenway girls that, now the will had been found, the matters of the estate would all be straightened out. Unless they objected, he would be appointed guardian as well as administrator of the estate. There was plenty of cash in the bank, and they were warranted in living upon a somewhat better scale than they had been living since coming to the old Corner House.

Besides, Ruth, as well as the other girls, was to go to school in the autumn, and she looked forward to this change with delight. What she and her sisters did at school, the new friends they made, and how they bound old friends to them with closer ties, will be set forth in another volume, to be called “The Corner House Girls at School.”

A great many things happened to them before schooldays came around. As Tess declared:

“I never did see such a busy time in this family—did you, Dot? Seems to me we don’t have time to turn around, before something new happens!”

“Well, I’m glad things happen,” quoth Dot, gravely. “Suppose nothing ever _did_ happen to us? We just might as well be asleep all the time.”

First of all, with the mystery of Uncle Peter’s will cleared away, and the status of Mrs. Treble and Lillie decided, Ruth went at the mystery which had frightened them so in the garret. Even Agnes became brave enough on that particular Monday to go “ghost hunting.”

They clambered to the garret and examined the window at which they thought they had seen the flapping, jumping figure in the storm. There was positively nothing hanging near the window to suggest such a spectral form as the girls had seen from the parade ground.

“And this is the window,” said Ruth, thoughtfully. “To the right of the chimney——Oh! goodness me, what a foolish mistake!”

“What’s the matter now?” asked the nervous Agnes, who did not dare approach very near the window.

“Why, it wasn’t this window at all,” Ruth said. “Don’t you see? It was to the right of the chimney _from the outside_! So it is on the left of the chimney up here. It is the other window.”

She marched around the big bulge of the chimney. Agnes held to her sleeve.

“I don’t care,” she said, faintly. “It was a ghost just the same——”

There was another window just like the one they had formerly looked at. Only, above the window frame was a narrow shelf on which lay a big, torn, home-made kite—the cloth it was covered with yellowed with age, and the string still fastened to it. In cleaning the garret, this kite had been so high up that none of them had lifted it down. Indeed, the string was fastened to a nail driven into a rafter, above.

Even now there was a draught of air sucking in around the loose window frame, and the kite rustled and wabbled on its perch. Ruth ran forward and knocked it off the shelf.

“Oh, oh!” shrieked Agnes.

The kite dangled and jumped right before the window in such a manner that it must have looked positively weird from the outside. It was more than half as tall as a man and its crazy motions might well be taken for a human figure, from a distance.

Suddenly the boisterous wind seized it again and jerked it back to its perch on the shelf. There it lay quivering, until the next gust of wind should make it perform its ghostly dance before the garret casement.

“Oh, isn’t that great!” gasped Agnes. “And it must have been there for years and years—ever since Uncle Peter was a boy, perhaps. Now! what do you suppose Eva Larry will say?”

“And other people who have been afraid to come to the old Corner House?” laughed Ruth. “Oh, I know! we’ll give a ghost party up here in the garret.”

“Ruth!” screamed Agnes in delight. “That will be just scrumptious!”

“We shall celebrate the laying of the ghost. No! don’t touch it, Agnes. We’ll show the girls when they come just what made all the trouble.”

This the Corner House girls did. They invited every girl they had become acquainted with in Milton—little and big. Even Alfredia Blossom came and helped Uncle Rufus and Petunia Blossom wait upon the table.

For the first time in years, the old Corner House resounded to the laughter and conversation of a great company. There was music, too, and Ruth opened the parlors for the first time. They all danced in those big rooms.

Mr. Howbridge proved to be a very nice guardian indeed. He allowed Ruth to do pretty much everything she wanted. But, then, Ruth Kenway was not a girl to desire anything that was not good and sensible.

“It’s dreadfully nice to feel _settled_,” said Tess to Dot and Maria Maroni, and Margaret and Holly Pease, and the three Creamer girls, as they all crowded into the summer house the afternoon of the ghost laying party.

“Now we _know_ we’re going to stay here, so we can make plans for the future,” pursued Tess.

“Yes,” observed Dot. “I’m going right to work to make my Alice-doll a new dress. She hasn’t had anything fit to wear since that awful time she was buried alive.”

“Buried alive!” shrieked Mabel Creamer. “How was _that_?”

“Yes. And they buried her with some dried apples,” sighed Dot. “She’s never been the same since. You see, her eyes are bad. I ought to take her to an eye and ear infernery, I s’pose; but maybe even the doctors there couldn’t help her.”

“I don’t think it’s _infernery_, Dot,” said Tess, slowly. “That doesn’t sound just right. It sounds more like a conservatory than a hospital.”

“Well, _hospital_, then!” exclaimed Dot. “And poor Alice! I don’t suppose she ever _will_ get the color back into her cheeks.”

“Shouldn’t think she would, if she’s been buried alive,” said Mabel, blankly.

The two youngest Kenways had been very glad to see Lillie Treble go away, but this was almost the only comment they ever made upon that angel-faced child, before company. Tess and Dot _were_ polite!

That was a lovely day, and the Corner House girls all enjoyed the party immensely. Good Mrs. McCall was delighted, too. She had come to love Ruth and Agnes and Tess and Dot, almost as though they were her own. Ruth had already engaged a strong girl to help about the kitchen work, and the widow had a much easier time at the old Corner House than she had at first had.

Aunt Sarah appeared at the party, when the dancing began, in a new cap and with her knitting. She had subsided into her old self again, immediately after her discovery of Uncle Peter’s secret panel in the old secretary in the garret. She talked no more than had been her wont, and her knitting needles clicked quite as sharply. Perhaps, however, she took a more kindly interest in the affairs of the Corner House girls.

She was not alone in that. All the neighbors, and the church people—indeed everybody in Milton who knew Ruth Kenway and her sisters at all—had a deep interest in the fortunes of the Corner House girls.

“They are a town institution,” said Mr. Howbridge. “There is no character sweeter and finer than that of Ruth Kenway. Her sisters, too, in their several ways, are equally charming.

“Ruth—Agnes—Tess—Dot! For an old bachelor like me, who has known no family—to secure the confidence and liking of such a quartette of young folk, is a privilege I fully appreciate. I am proud of them!”

THE END

Charming Stories for Girls

THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SERIES

By GRACE BROOKS HILL

Four girls from eight to fourteen years of age receive word that a rich bachelor uncle has died, leaving them the old Corner House he occupied. They move into it and then the fun begins. What they find and do will provoke many a hearty laugh. Later, they enter school and make many friends. One of these invites the girls to spend a few weeks at a bungalow owned by her parents, and the adventures they meet with make very interesting reading. Clean, wholesome stories of humor and adventure, sure to appeal to all young girls.

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2 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AT SCHOOL.
3 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS UNDER CANVAS.
4 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS IN A PLAY.
5 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS’ ODD FIND.
6 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A TOUR.
7 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS GROWING UP.
8 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SNOWBOUND.
9 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON A HOUSEBOAT.
10 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS AMONG THE GYPSIES.
11 CORNER HOUSE GIRLS ON PALM ISLAND.
12 THE CORNER HOUSE GIRLS SOLVE A MYSTERY.

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2 POLLY’S SUMMER VACATION
3 POLLY’S SENIOR YEAR AT BOARDING SCHOOL
4 POLLY SEES THE WORLD AT WAR
5 POLLY AND LOIS
6 POLLY AND BOB
7 POLLY’S REUNION

Cloth. Large 12mo. Illustrated.

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Chicken Little Jane on the “Big John”
Chicken Little Jane Comes to Town

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_By_ CHARLES D. HUBBARD

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2 MARY JANE—HER VISIT
3 MARY JANE’S KINDERGARTEN
4 MARY JANE DOWN SOUTH
5 MARY JANE’S CITY HOME
6 MARY JANE IN NEW ENGLAND
7 MARY JANE’S COUNTRY HOME
8 MARY JANE AT SCHOOL
9 MARY JANE IN CANADA

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Publishers

New York, N. Y.—Newark, N. J.

DOROTHY WHITEHILL SERIES

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6 Titles, Cloth, large 12mo.,

Covers in color.

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2. PHYLLIS, A TWIN
3. THE TWINS IN THE WEST
4. THE TWINS IN THE SOUTH
5. THE TWINS’ SUMMER VACATION
6. THE TWINS AND TOMMY JR.

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“GEORGE WASHINGTON” Joseph Walker
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“THOMAS A. EDISON” Inez N. McFee
“HARRIET BEECHER STOWE” Ruth Brown MacArthur
“MARY LYON” H. Oxley Stengel
“THEODORE ROOSEVELT” J. Walker McSpadden

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OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION

BARSE & HOPKINS

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