s I am," tartly returned Mrs. Peckaby.

"One 'ud think so. _You_ can't want to go out to meet ghostesses; you
be a-going out to your saints at New Jerusalem. I'd whack that there
donkey for being so slow, when he did come, if I was you."

Hastening away from Bascroft and his aggravating tongue, the expedition,
having drained their tumblers, filed out. Down by the pound--relieved
now of its caged inmate--went they, on towards the Willow Pond. The
tumblers had made them brave. The night was light, as the preceding one
had been; the ground looked white, as if with frost, and the air was
cold. The pond in view, they halted, and took a furtive glance,
beginning to feel somewhat chill. So far as these half glances allowed
them to judge, there appeared to be nothing near to it, nothing upon its
brink.

"It's of no good marching right up to it," said Mrs. Jones, the baker's
wife. "The ghost mightn't come at all, if it saw all us there. Let's get
inside the trees."

Mrs. Jones meant inside the grove of trees. The proposition was most
acceptable, and they took up their position, the pond in view, peeping
out, and conversing in a whisper. By and by they heard the church clock
strike eight.

"I wish it'ud make haste," exclaimed Susan Peckaby, with some
impatience. "I don't never like to be away from home long together, for
fear of that there blessed white animal arriving."

"He'd wait, wouldn't he?" sarcastically rejoined Polly Dawson.
"He'd----"

A prolonged hush--sh--sh! from the rest restored silence. Something was
rustling the trees at a distance. They huddled closer together, and
caught hold one of another.

Nothing appeared. The alarm went off. And they waited, without result,
until the clock struck nine. The artificial strength within them had
cooled by that time, their ardour had cooled, and they were feeling
chill and tired. Susan Peckaby was upon thorns, she said, and urged
their departure.

"_You_ can go if you like," was the answer. "Nobody wants to keep you."

Susan Peckaby measured the distance between the pond and the way she had
to go, and came to the determination to risk it.

"I'll make a rush for it, I think," said she. "I sha'n't see nothing.
For all I know, that quadruple may be right afore our door now. If
he----"

Susan Peckaby stopped, her voice subsiding into a shriek. She, and those
with her, became simultaneously aware that some white figure was bearing
down upon them. The shrieks grew awf