“They were just perfect,” declared Everychild.

“That’s really what Arthur meant,” interposed Will o’Dreams.

There was almost unanimous agreement then that the song and dance had been very well done, the strongest testimony of all being offered by the little black dog, who approached Little Boy Blue and asked, quite as plainly as if he had spoken, to have the entertainment prolonged.

But as the entire band hoped to be on their way early in the morning, it was agreed, after a time, that a good night’s sleep was the best thing they could have; and as the sun had now set, they went into the house, and each chose a place in which to spend the night.

The clamor of voices soon sank to a sleepy murmur; and presently there was such silence that the house might indeed have been a haunted one, just as the village superstition held it to be.

There would have been nothing more worth recording in the adventures of that day but for the fact that Everychild, at the last moment, felt an irresistible desire to explore the attic of the old house.  And this he undertook to do, after all his companions had, as he supposed, fallen asleep.

CHAPTER XXI

AN ENCOUNTER IN THE ATTIC

He moved stealthily about the upper story of the house, trying this door and that.  He did not wish to disturb his companions, for he knew that a sound in the dark would startle them, especially after they had been told of the rumor that the house was haunted.

The first and second doors he tried opened into empty rooms.  The third and fourth, into closets.  But the fifth opened to a narrow staircase; and ascending this on tip-toe, he presently found himself in the attic.

It was a very solemn place.  The eaves sloped down closely as if they were a sort of hood, meant to hide something evil.  There was one window at the gable end:  a broken window, with fragments of glass lying about it.  The light of the moon penetrated the window, making the fragments of glass glisten, and forming a pale avenue across the dusty floor.

There were old chests here and there, all mysteriously closed—­perhaps locked.  There were old garments hanging in obscure places.  They made you think of persons lurking there in the dark.  Outside the broken window an owl in a dark tree hooted mournfully.

Everychild crossed the attic cautiously.  Timbers creaked beneath his feet.  The smell of old, abandoned things arose.  And suddenly he stopped short and clinched his hands.  Beyond a pale haze of moonbeams he saw some one sitting on one of the closed chests.

That form in the gloom was perfectly motionless; and for a time Everychild tried to convince himself that here was simply another delusion—­that certain old articles of furniture or clothing had been so arranged as to suggest the form of a human being.