that 'cause I'm batty. But ye wouldn't hurt me, little 'un, 'cause I
love ye. How old be ye?"

"Six years old; but it isn't any of your business. Crazy people ought to
be locked up. You'd better go away from here. My father owns that house,
and--don't you follow me through the hedge. Get back, I say! If I call
Malcolm--"

Everett drew back through the box-hedge, and the boy and the girl at the
window saw the woman squeeze in after him. In another moment the young
heir to the Brimbecomb fortune bounded through the doorway. His face was
white; his eyes were filled with fear.

"Did you see that old woman?" he gasped. "She tried to kiss me, and I
punched her in the face, and her cat did this to my arm."

He pulled up his sleeve, and displayed a long scratch from wrist to
elbow.

"Are you sure it wasn't a ghost, Everett?" asked Ann, shivering.

"Of course, it wasn't," boasted Everett. "It was only a horrid woman
with a cat--that's all."

As he closed the door vehemently, there drifted to the children from the
marble monument and waving trees the faint wail of a night-owl.