pointing fingers; cranks, and bits of hanging chain; and on the side next the water, a huge wheel, rising apparently out of the bowels of the earth, since the lower part of it was invisible.  A cold, damp air seemed to rise from the earth.  Hilda shivered and drew back, looking rather pale.  “What a dreadful place!” she cried.  “It looks like a dungeon of the Inquisition.  I think you were very brave to go in there, Bubble.  I am sure I should not dare to go; it looks so spectral and frightful.”

“Hy Peters stumped me to go,” said Bubble, simply, “so o’ course I went.  Most of the boys dassent.  And it ain’t bad, after the fust time.  They do say it’s haunted; but I ain’t never seed nothin’.”

“Haunted!” cried Hilda, drawing back still farther from the black opening.  “By—­by what, Bubble?”

“Cap’n’s ghost!” replied the boy.  “He used to go rooklin’ round in there when he was alive, folks say, and some thinks his sperit haunts there now.”

“Oh, nonsense!” said Hildegarde, with a laugh which did not sound quite natural.  “Of course you don’t believe any such foolishness as that, Bubble.  But what did the old—­old gentleman—­want there when he was alive?  I can’t imagine any one going in there for pleasure.”

“Dunno, I’m sure!” replied Bubble.  “Father, he come down here one day, after blackberries, when he was a boy.  He hearn a noise in there, an’ went an’ peeked in, an’ there was the ol’ Cap’n pokin’ about with his big stick in the dirt.  He looked up an’ saw father, an’ came at him with his stick up, roarin’ like a mad bull, father said.  An’ he cut an’ run, father did, an’ he hearn the ol’ Cap’n laughin’ after him as if he’d have a fit.  Crazy as a loon, I reckon the Cap’n was, though none of his folks thought so, Ma says.”

He let the wild briers fly back about the gloomy opening, and they stepped back on the smooth greensward again.  Ah, how bright and warm the sunshine was, after that horrible black pit!  Hilda shivered again at the thought of it, and then laughed at her own cowardice.  She turned and gazed at the waterfall, creaming and curling over the rocks, and making such a merry, musical jest of its tumble into the pool.  “Oh, lovely, lovely!” she cried, kissing her hand to it.  “Bubble, do you know that Hartley’s Glen is without exception the most beautiful place in the world?”

“No, miss!  Be it really?” asked Zerubbabel, seriously.  “I allays thought ’twas kind of a sightly gully, but I didn’t know’t was all that.”

“Well, it is,” said Hilda.  “It is all that, and more; and I love it!  But now, Bubble,” she added, “we must make haste, for the farmer will be wanting you, and I have a dozen things to do before tea.”

“Yes, miss,” said Bubble, but without his usual alacrity.

Hilda saw a look of disappointment in his honest blue eyes, and asked what was the matter.  “I ain’t had my ballid!” said Zerubbabel, sadly.