Page:A Little Country Girl - Coolidge (1887).djvu/239

 "How brave! And what was it like?"

"It was like—a rat! When she caught sight of it, it was sitting on the edge of a pot of lard. It was picking its teeth, she said."

"A pot of lard!"

"Yes. The secret staircase led down to a sort of cellar, you see."

"Oh, Mrs. Joy, how disappointing!"

"I'm afraid ghost stories generally do turn out disappointing in the end. Here we are, close to old Fort Greene. Would you like to jump out, and run down to the water's edge and see it?"

"Oh, thank you, I should like it ever so much."

It was but a few steps from the carriage to the grassy top of the old redoubt; but when Cannie had picked her way down the steep incline toward the shore, she found herself entirely out of sight of the street and the houses, out of sight of everything except the lovely sunlit Bay which stretched before her. There was no sound except the plash of the waves, and for a moment she felt as much