Mavis and Merle, being day girls at The Moorings, have occupied so much of our attention that we have somewhat neglected the boarders. In their own estimation, however, they were a very important part of the community. There were twelve of them altogether, and though, during classes, they mixed with the rest of the school, they were rather proud of the fact that, as far as possible, they "kept themselves to themselves". They had all sorts of little secrets that day girls might not share, signs and passwords and mysterious references, which gave them great satisfaction, and were calculated to provoke envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness in the breasts of those who did not understand the allusions, and whom they sternly refused to initiate.

Many of the boarders were the children of parents who were out in India. Some of them had been born there, and could remember burning skies and temples and native bazaars and elephants, and many other un-English things. Mamie and Jessie Drew could even speak Hindustani, a language which all the Indian-born children had talked in their infancy, though most of them had forgotten it in a very short time after landing in Britain. With the exception of Iva Westwood, Nesta Pitman, and Aubrey Simpson, the boarders were all juniors, and an uncommonly lively little crew, who sometimes led their seniors a dance, and were capable of a considerable amount of ragging among themselves.

The two who were generally at the bottom of most of the mischief were Winnie Osborne and Joyce Coleman, nicknamed by Iva "the firebrands". Under Miss Pollard's gentle rule their escapades sometimes got rather out of bounds, but they had a wholesome respect for Miss Fanny, who did not often interfere with the management of the boarders out of school hours, but who dealt out discipline if she happened to catch anybody tripping.

Among the silliest of the boarders was Nita Howard, a child who was a born gossip, and who sometimes made trouble by repeating conversations or remarks which she had overheard, and which she had very much better have kept to herself. Nita had no discretion. Miss Pollard often told her her tongue was too long, and certainly on many occasions it got herself and her chums into scrapes. One evening, just after it grew dark, she came running into the recreation-room in a state of much excitement.

"I've got news for you, girls?" she chirped.

"No! What?" exclaimed Mamie and Alison, her particular friends, looking up with interest from the scrap-books that they were engaged in making.

"Well, I'll tell you then," said Nita, sitting down by the table and lowering her voice. "The ghost has been seen again in Poplar Lane!"

"I say, shut up there, Nita," murmured Nesta, who was painting at the same table. "Do you want those kids in umpteen fits?"

Nita beckoned her chums away from the vicinity of the smaller children in question, so that she might continue her thrilling story in private.

"It has really!" she assured them in a whisper.

"O-o-h!" came in a horror-stricken chorus. "How do you know?"

"I've just heard Bella telling Cook. It's Bella's evening out, and she went down the back carriage drive into Poplar Lane to take a short cut to meet a friend, and just when she got under the shade of the trees she saw something all in white coming towards her. She shrieked and ran straight back to the house, and she says she daren't go out again, even though her own cousin is waiting for her at the other end of the lane."

"Bella's rather a goose," put in Nesta, who had moved to the end of the table so as to overhear. "I shouldn't believe a word she says."

"It's quite true though. She saw it with her own eyes."

"She certainly couldn't see it with anybody else's," retorted Nesta scornfully. "It was probably a white cow coming down the lane." "No, it wasn't. It was really the ghost. Bella felt a most extraordinary feeling as if the blood was freezing in her veins. She says she never remembers anything like it since the night a dog howled under her window and her grandmother died. Her heart stood absolutely still for two whole minutes."

"Bunkum! Bella hasn't had physiology lessons or she'd know that's impossible. Why she wouldn't be alive to tell the tale!" snorted Nesta. "How can you swallow such precious stuff, you little silly?"

"It's not stuff."

"Indeed it is."

"Then don't listen."

"I certainly shan't," and Nesta, moving her painting things along the table, went back to her original place.

Her curiosity, however, got the better of her. She had sharp ears and she caught most of what followed, losing a few details, for Nita was whispering and Nesta was too proud to move nearer. The other two put their heads very close to Nita's in order to hear the interesting particulars.

"I didn't know Poplar Lane was haunted," said Mamie.

"Yes, it is, by a woman in white. She appears quite suddenly standing near our gate. But she hasn't been seen for a long time."

"I thought only old houses had ghosts," ventured Alison. "The Moorings isn't so very old, is it?"

"It's quite old enough to have a ghost. There's a story about it—an awful story! Bella told it to me."

"What is it?"

"I don't know whether I ought to tell it to you."

"Oh, go on!"

"Well, a gentleman used to live here once," began Nita, in tones of delighted importance. "His name was Mr. Morrison. Late one night—it was exactly at midnight—he happened to look out of the window, and he saw a white carriage with a pair of white horses drive up to the door, but it didn't make the least sound of wheels or hoofs. And, do you know, he died afterwards."

"Of course he died afterwards," was heard from Nesta's end of the table. "He couldn't very well die before, could he? Perhaps it was twenty years afterwards."

"I thought you weren't listening. No, it was quite soon afterwards. Wasn't it horrible?"

"What's the white lady got to do with the carriage?" asked Alison. "Was she sitting inside?"

"I'm coming to that presently. Mr. Morrison had a son called Meredith, who did all kinds of wicked things. When his father died this son was worse than ever, and spent both his mother's money and his own on gambling. He used to ride away on his horse at night and not come back till very, very late, and his mother used to go and stand in Poplar Lane to watch for him. She told him that when she died her spirit would stand there still. But he didn't care in the least what she said. On the night after her funeral he rode off on his horse just as usual, and when he came back, there was her ghost all in white, waiting by the gate for him. He gave a fearful cry, and fell from his horse—dead!"

"O-o-o-h!" came from Mamie and Alison.

"Rubbish!" grunted Nesta from the other end of the table.

Nita felt she had scored a success. She could seldom get the girls to pay any attention to her, but they were certainly listening now. The four smaller ones, who were supposed not to overhear, had, of course, had their ears wide open as little pitchers always will. Doreen had turned quite white, Prue was clutching Elsbeth's hand, and Jessie, after a surreptitious glance at Nesta, had crept nearer and asked under her breath who had told Bella.

"I don't know," answered Nita, "but somebody who knew all about it. The house was to let for a long time before Miss Pollard took it. Bella says she'd never have come here if she'd known there was a ghost. She means to give notice and get another place as soon as she can."

"Does it ever come indoors?" gasped Elsbeth.

"I don't think so," replied Nita, keenly enjoying herself, "but, of course, you never can tell. When a place is haunted it's haunted, and you must be ready for anything."

"I shan't dare to go to bed," wailed Elsbeth.

"No more shall I," moaned Jessie. "I don't believe I shall even dare to practise in a room by myself. Suppose I saw it standing by the piano? What should I do?"

"Ask it to sit down and play you a tune," said Nesta, shutting her paint-box. "Nita, how can you frighten them in this silly way with your precious ghost tales? You oughtn't to talk to the servants if Bella only tells you such whoppers. Doreen's eyes are nearly dropping out of her head. By the by, what's become of Winnie and Joyce?"

"I haven't seen them. I thought they were practising. Do they know?" asked Mamie.

"Not yet," replied Nita mysteriously, "but, of course, we shall have to tell them. Oh, here they are now!"

"What's the matter?" cried the pair in question, seating themselves at the table.

"The ghost has been seen in Poplar Lane!" exploded Jessie, before Nita had time to get the words out herself.

A look of intelligence passed between Winnie and Joyce.

"Hold me up! When?"

"Where?"

"To-night. Just by the gate. Bella saw it herself."

"If Bella saw it herself it must have been there!" burbled Winnie.

"Or some other thingumbob very like it," piped Joyce, who seemed on the point of adding more, only Winnie trod on her toe, so she stopped short.

"And it may come inside the house," volunteered Doreen with a shiver. "What a blossomy prospect! I should think it very probably will," said Winnie.

"Ghosts generally like houses better than lanes," echoed Joyce.

"Isn't it dreadful, though?" said Nita, who felt that neither was sufficiently impressed, and was anxious to keep up the full horror of the situation.

When bedtime arrived the younger children were in a state bordering on panic. Mademoiselle could not understand why they insisted upon going upstairs so very close together, why they shot past the dark doorways of other dormitories, nor why Elsbeth begged her almost in tears not to turn the light out, and to leave the door open so that they could hear the elder girls come to bed. Mamie and Alison were in hardly better case. They had retailed all the ghost stories they had ever heard, and had worked themselves into a thoroughly nervous condition. At the return of daylight, however, they were inclined to laugh at their fears and agree with Nesta that it was silly nonsense.

"I don't think Winnie and Joyce minded in the least," ventured Alison.

"No, I couldn't quite make them out," replied Mamie. "They were so queer over it and kept looking at each other. Didn't you notice?" "I never thought about it," said Nita. "They're always having private jokes. You can hardly say anything without Joyce poking Winnie or Winnie nudging Joyce. I get sick to death of their precious secrets."

Everybody seemed ready that morning to make fun of the ghost, but when evening came again, superstitious terrors revived in full force. Jessie Drew spent a miserable half-hour practising with one eye on the window, having an uneasy sensation that the spectre would probably be gliding about the garden. She had not the strength of mind to draw down the blind, and so shut out the chance of the vision, and in consequence made such a peculiar rendering of her piece that Miss Fanny came in herself, scolded her sharply, and sat down by her side to insist upon her playing it properly.

"I didn't mind the scolding in the least," Jessie told her chums afterwards. "I was so thankful to see anybody I'd have been glad if she'd boxed my ears. I was so afraid she'd go away again I played wrong notes on purpose. She said she'd never known me so stupid."

"Miss Pollard sent me to her bedroom to fetch a book," said Nita. "I was simply shaking all over. That long passage is so dreadfully dark, and I saw something white at the end of it. It was only Bella's apron, though, that she'd hung over the banisters. The moonlight was coming in through the landing window, and, it looked so like ghosts I daren't go by, so I went down the back stairs and through the kitchen. I asked Bella if she'd seen anything more, and she said a big bird had flown against the window, and that's always a bad omen. Miss Pollard asked me why I'd been so long fetching the book, but I didn't dare tell her. I wonder what the bird was an omen of! I forgot to ask Bella."

Evening preparation went on as usual, after which most of the boarders collected in their own recreation-room to read or paint or otherwise amuse themselves. Iva and Aubrey were practising, but Nesta was sitting with the juniors, of whom only Winnie and Joyce were missing. These two seemed to have mysteriously disappeared. Joyce came back after a short time, looking rather red and excited, but she made no remark, and taking a book began to read.

"I can't find my post-card album anywhere," complained Nita, hunting disconsolately round the room, "and I did so want to put in those extra cards I got last week. I'm sure I left it on the bookcase."

"I saw it in the cloakroom on the boot-rack," volunteered Joyce.

"However could it get there?"

"I don't know, but I saw it."

"Miau! I daren't go and fetch it. I simply daren't. The cloakroom will be quite dark. Won't somebody go with me? Alison, be a mascot!"

"No, thanks! You won't stir this child."

"I'll go," proclaimed Joyce, jumping up briskly. "I don't mind at all. Come along Nita!"

"Oh, you saintly girl!"

The two went out of the room, Nita clutching tightly to Joyce's arm and volunteering gasping little remarks.

IT CERTAINLY WAS A MOST ALARMING SPECTACLE

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