Betsey and David were frankly gossiping, but with the most intent and serious purpose in the world. The days were growing so long that they could do their studying out of doors in the evenings, and the place of their choosing, where they struggled with dates and angles and difficult lines of Virgil, was the stretch of grass around the pool. When the first stars began to show in the water, it was a signal for discussion of lessons to be put aside. Later they would walk back to the cottage, where Betsey would help Miss Miranda in the kitchen or would stroll with her in the garden while David would go into the workshop, take off his coat, arm himself with an oil can in one hand and a wrench in the other and would say to Mr. Reynolds, who usually did not even hear him come in—

“All ready, sir.”

To-night they were delaying a little, after having mastered the subject of extreme and mean ratio, and were piecing together such bits of knowledge as each one had concerning their friends in the white cottage, trying to come to some conclusion as to what was the matter and what could be done. Michael’s doleful face seemed to give warning every day that the “feeling in his bones” was in no way diminished, and Miss Miranda appeared more and more concerned and weary.

“Miss Miranda only meant to help us remember the Barbary pirates,” David was saying, “but she told us more than that. I begin to see how it is their blood, hers and her father’s, to dream of progress and new things. That new engine that Mr. Reynolds is trying to develop may turn out as great a thing as the clipper ship, and may bring as many changes. And she is doing as much for it as her father, managing that he is never disturbed or troubled or discouraged. Even if he should want to give it up, I think she wouldn’t let him.”

“She is more like Jonathan Adams than like Humphrey Reynolds,” rejoined Elizabeth, “though they were both her great-grandfathers. Jonathan’s daughter married Humphrey’s son and they inherited the shipyard, so she told me yesterday, and built clipper ships after him. Some of them really did sail to Europe in nine days, just as Jonathan had hoped. They made a great fortune during that time when American ships were trading with the whole world.”

“And it was that fortune that built this house,” David took up the thread of speculation, “and gave Mr. Reynolds his scientific education and sent him to all sorts of places abroad to study. But where is it?”

“Wherever it has gone,” Betsey said, “it may come back again some day. I will always like to think of how Jonathan and Humphrey succeeded in the face of everything. I think Mr. Reynolds will succeed in the same way.”

“Miss Miranda will never lose courage,” David observed reflectively, “but her father is—a little different. He is old and tired and he is trying to do the work of a young man, of a person with strength and confidence in himself. Without Miss Miranda he might have lost spirit long ago, but she will help him to the very end. She is anxious and lonely, she wants her brother, and she wants her house. But more than anything she wants her father’s success.”

“They must have been very happy when they lived here,” Betsey went on, “with Mr. Reynolds busy at his work, with Ted coming home for vacations—he was only just out of college, Michael says, when the war began—with that Cousin Donald gone into business and doing well. Mr. Reynolds must have given him the money for a start and I think they must all have felt more comfortable when he was gone. And then the house burned and the war came, and everything was changed so that nobody was happy any more.”

“Mr. Reynolds is happy,” David insisted; “whatever is wrong is being kept from him. To work at something you love that is coming nearer and nearer to success, that is one of the best things there is. But Miss Miranda isn’t happy! And she is growing more unhappy every day. It’s time something was done.”

“If her brother could only come home,” Betsey suggested.

“He might come home to-morrow, he might be kept a year,” replied David. “No, we can’t wait for him. We will have to do something ourselves.”

“But what can we do?” questioned Betsey blankly.

“I don’t know yet,” confessed David, knitting his eyebrows in earnest thought as he sat on the grass with his arms about his knees, “but there is bound to be something we can do if we just stand by and try hard enough. And I would try anything for Miss Miranda!”

There was nothing small or mean about David’s ambitions nor in the loyalty of his friendship.

“While we are talking it all over, there is one other thing I should like to speak about,” began Betsey hesitatingly. “Do you ever think that there is anything about this house—this place that was a house—that is at all—queer?”

David sat bolt upright and stared at her fixedly.

“You have been talking to Michael,” he accused her. “Michael says that ill luck is brooding over the whole place like a summer thunderstorm and that there is no telling where the bolt will strike. I never saw a person who could believe such strange things as Michael.”

“No,” Betsey maintained stoutly, “it is not from anything he said. It is only what I have seen myself.”

She sat looking at him, first with sharp penetration, then with the dawn of a sudden discovery. She was possessed of less soaring ambition than David, but of a more keenly observant eye.

“You have seen something yourself,” she announced. “You are trying to argue me out of it because you don’t want to believe your own eyes. Tell me what you have seen.”

David was silent for a minute, apparently struggling obstinately against his own convictions.

“It was just—lights, and—and something moving,” he confessed shamefacedly at last. “It might have been almost anything, wind, fireflies, moonlight on that broken mirror. I’m not going to let Michael make me believe in goblins.”

“It is only lately that I have seen it,” Betsey said. “From the house where I live you can see the top of this hill and I am certain that, on three nights at least, I have seen a light moving back and forth among the ruins. It is very small and dim and it goes so slowly, sometimes I think it has disappeared entirely but it always comes in sight again. One night it was raining and the next the moon was shining and the next it was dim starlight, but the light was there. And you have seen it too?”

“Yes,” admitted David, “though I have tried to make myself believe it was a mistake. I was coming up Somerset Lane after dark, the first time, and I saw that same light, bobbing and jerking across the broken walls. I stopped and watched and tried to persuade myself that it was fireflies or glow-worms, but I didn’t succeed. A very small light, as you say, and moving slowly but never really coming to rest. I—I don’t quite like it.”

It was growing dusky in the shadow of the pines, so that Betsey began to look about her with a slight uneasiness. The subject was one that did not tend greatly toward making one peaceful or at rest in that lonely place.

“I rather believe Miss Miranda will be looking for us,” she said somewhat lamely at last. David laughed.

“I don’t feel very comfortable here myself,” he agreed, “and it is getting rather dark. Yes, it must be time to go.”

They went along the path together to the gate without speaking, until, with his hand on the lock, David paused and looked back.

“I am going back after it grows really dark,” he said, “to see what that thing is. It ought not to go on.”

“Oh, no,” cried Elizabeth in real horror. “Oh, no!”

“It is something that ought to be cleared up,” David insisted steadily. “If we don’t do it ourselves, we should tell some one who will. The place belongs to Miss Miranda and it should be looked after. Yes, I am going to see about it to-night.”

“Then,” replied Elizabeth with a long and rather gasping breath, “if you will go, I am going with you.”

They did not work very long at their respectiv............