Chapter 7 REAL GHOSTS

"That explains the basket!" exclaimed Dorothy, suddenly.

"How can they do it!" Mabel giggled excitedly.

"They can't," Dorothy replied, calmly, "they'll simply get in a mess-soot and things, you know."

"Let's run. I'm too excited to breathe! I know something dreadful is bound to happen!" And Mabel clutched Dorothy's arm.

"And leave the boys to their fate? No, indeed, we'll see the prank through, since we walked into it," Dorothy said, determinedly.

Mabel laughed nervously, and looked at Dorothy in puzzled impatience. "I always believe in running while there's time," she explained.

Music, sweet and low, floated out on the still, cold air of the night, and the wedding guests, in trailing gowns of silver and lace and soft satins, stood in laughing groups, all eyes turned toward the broad staircase.

"How quiet it's become; everyone has stopped talking," whispered Mabel, in Dorothy's ear.

"How peculiarly they are all staring! But of course it must be exciting just before the bride appears," murmured Dorothy, in answer.

"Oh, there comes the bride!" cried Mabel. "Isn't she sweet!"

"It's a stunt to trail downstairs that way-like a summer breeze. How beautifully gauzy she looks!" sighed Dorothy.

The eyes of the guests were turned half in wonder toward the old chimney place, and half smilingly toward the bride. On came the bride, tall and slender and leaning gracefully on her father's arm, straight toward the tall mantel in the chimney place, which was lavishly banked with palms and flowers, and the minister began reading the ceremony.

"Hey! Let go there!" Ned's muffled voice floated above the heads of the wedding guests, who stood aghast.

"You're stuck all right, old chap," came the consoling voice of Nat in a ghostly whisper.

Sounds of half-smothered, weird laughter-or so the laughter seemed to the guests-filled the air. The bridegroom flushed and looked quickly at his bride, who clung to her father's arm, pale with fright. The minister alone was calm.

As the bridegroom's clear answer: "I will" came to the ears of Dorothy and Mabel out on the porch, a creepy sound issued from the great fireplace. The newly-made husband kissed his bride, and the guests moved back.

Dorothy leaned eagerly forward to catch a glimpse of the radiantly smiling bride. Just then a tall palm wavered, fell to the floor with a crash, and in falling, carried vases and jars of flowers with it, and the ghostly laughter could be plainly heard by all.

All the tales that had been told of the haunted house came vividly before each guest. There were feminine screams, a confused rush for the hallway, and in two seconds the wedding festivities were in an uproar. The bride sank to the floor, and with white, upturned face, lay unconscious.

The men of the party with one thought jumped to the fireplace, and Ned was dragged, by way of the chimney, into the room. Completely dazed, utterly chagrined, and looking altogether foolish, he sat in a round, high basket, his knees crushed under his chin, the clown's cap rakishly hanging over one ear, his face unrecognizable in its thick coating of cobwebs and soot.

"Oh, we're so sorry," Dorothy's eager young voice broke upon the hushed crowd, as she ran into the room, with Mabel behind her.

Ned stared open-mouthed at the gaily-dressed people. It had happened so suddenly, and was so far from what he had planned, that he could not get himself in hand.

"Good gracious!" exclaimed the bride's father, pacing up and down, "can't someone get order out of this chaos?"

The bridegroom was chafing the small white hands of his bride, and the guests stepped away to give her air. The wedding finery lay limp and draggled. Dorothy stifled a moan as she looked. Quickly jumping out of the crowd she left the room. Mabel stood still, uncertain as to what to do. At the long French windows appeared Nat, Ted and Gus, grotesque in their make-ups and trying in vain to appear as serious as the situation demanded.

"Step in here!" commanded the father, and the boys meekly stepped in. A brother of the bride held Ned firmly by the arm. "Now, young scallywags, explain yourselves!"

It was an easy thing for the irate father to demand, but it completely upset the boys. They couldn't explain themselves.

In an awed whisper, Ned ventured an explanation: "We only wanted to keep up the reputation of the house."

"And the basket stuck," eagerly helped out Ted. "We just thought we would whisper mysteriously and-and cough-or something," and Ned tried to free himself from the grip on his arm.

"It was wider than we thought and the basket kept going down--" Nat's voice was hoarse, but he couldn't control his mirth.

"The rope slipped some-and the basket stuck--" Ted's voice was brimming over with apologies.

"Naturally, we would have entered by the front door," politely explained Gus, "had we foreseen this."

"You see it stuck," persisted Ted, apparently unable to remember anything but that awful fact.

"Then it really wasn't spooks," asked a tall, dark-haired girl, as she joined the group.

One by one the guests gingerly returned to the room and stood about, staring in amusement at the boys. The cool, though severe stares of the ladies were harder to bear than any rough treatment that might be accorded them by the men. Against the latter they could defend themselves, but, as Ned suddenly realized, there is no defence for mere man against the amused stare of a lady.

"It certainly could be slated at police headquarters as 'entering'," calmly said a stout man, taking in every detail of the boys' costumes. "Disturbing the peace and several other things."

"With intent to do malicious mischief," the man who spoke balanced himself on his heels and swung a chrysanthemum to and fro by the stem.

The minister was walking uneasily about. The bride was on a sofa where she had been lifted to come out of her faint.

In a burst of impatience Ted whispered to Mabel, whom, for some reason, he did not appear at all surprised to see there: "Where's Dorothy?"

Mabel, scared and perplexed, shook her head solemnly. But, as if in answer to the question, Dorothy rushed into the room, her cheeks aglow, her hair flying wildly about, and behind her walked Dr. Gray.

Dr. Gray's kindly smile beamed on the little bride, and he soon brought her around. Sitting up, she burst into a peal of merry laughter.

"What, pray tell me, are they?" she demanded, pointing at the boys. She was still white, but her eyes danced, and her small white teeth gleamed between red lips.

"My cousins," bravely answered Dorothy. Everyone laughed, and the boys, in evident relief, shouted.

"You've come to my wedding!" exclaimed the bride.

"Kind of 'em; wasn't it?" said the bridegroom, sneeringly.

"But we're going now," quickly replied Dorothy, with great dignity.

"Why?" asked the bride with wide open eyes. "Since you are not really spooky creatures, stay for the dancing."

"We're terribly thankful you are not ghosts," chirped a fluffy bridesmaid.

"You see if you had really been spooks," laughed the bride, "everyone would have shrieked at me that horrible phrase, 'I told you so,' because you know I insisted upon being married in this house, just to defy superstition."

"Just think what you've saved us!" said the tall, dark-haired girl.

"Of course if it will be any accommodation," awkwardly put in Ned, "we'll dance." He thought he had said the perfectly polite thing.

"He's going to dance for us!" cried the tall girl, to the others in the hall, and everyone crowded in.

An hour later, trudging home in the bright moonlight, Dorothy sighed: "Weren't they wonderful!"

"It was decent of them to let us stay and have such fun," commented Ned.

"And such eats!" mused Nat. And Nat and Ned, with a strangle hold on each other, waltzed down the road.

Happy, but completely tired, the boys and girls plowed through the snow, homeward bound.