"Nights mostly."
"I shall--watch to-night," said Cousin Mildred. "And you say the house
is old?"
"Awful old," said William, reassuringly.
Her attitude to William was a relief to the rest of the family.
Visitors sometimes objected to William.
"She seems to have almost taken to William," said his mother, with a
note of unflattering incredulity in her voice.
William was pleased yet embarrassed by her attentions. It was a
strange experience to him to be accepted by a grown-up as a
fellow-being. She talked to him with interest and a certain humility,
she bought him sweets and seemed pleased that he accepted them, she
went for walks with him, and evidently took his constrained silence
for the silence of depth and wisdom.
Beneath his embarrassment he was certainly pleased and flattered. She
seemed to prefer his company to that of Ethel. That was one in the
eye for Ethel. But he felt that something was expected from him in
return for all this kindness and attention. William was a sportsman.
He decided to supply it. He took a book of ghost stories from the
juvenile library at school, and read them in the privacy of his room
at night. Many were the thrilling adventures which he had to tell to
Cousin Mildred in the morning. Cousin Mildred's bump of credulity was
a large one. She supplied him with sweets on a generous scale. She
listened to him with awe and wonder.
"William ... you are one of the elect, the chosen," she said, "one of
those whose spirits can break down the barrier between the unseen
world and ours with ease.
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