or Elfreda!"

"Of course, the writer meant Elfreda," agreed Miriam. "'Bert,' I
suppose, stands for Alberta. In the first place, what haunted house does
she mean?"

"I don't know," answered Grace, knitting her brows. "Wait a minute! I'll
go down and ask Mrs. Elwood."

Within five minutes she had returned, bristling with information. "I
found out the whole story," she declared. "It is an old white house not
far from Hunter's Rock. Two brothers once lived there, and one
disappeared. It was rumored that he had been killed by his older
brother, and that the spirit of the murdered man haunted the place so
persistently that the other brother left there and never came back. They
say a white figure, carrying a lighted candle, walks moaning through the
rooms."

"How dreadful!" shivered Anne. "It is bad enough to think of those girls
coaxing Elfreda to go there. I believe they intend to persuade her to go
there, then leave her, too."

"We might show Elfreda this note," reflected Miriam. "No; on second
thought I should say we'd better make up a crowd and follow the others
to Hunter's Rock. Of course, we won't stay there. Those girls are
breaking rules by going there at night. We shall be breaking rules, too,
but in a good cause."

A long conversation ensued that would have aroused consternation in the
breast of a number of sophomores, had they been privileged to hear it.
When the last detail had been arranged, Grace leaned back in her chair
and smiled. "I think everything will go beautifully," she said, "and
several people are going to be surprised. Miriam, will you see Mabel
Ashe, Constance Fuller and Frances Marlton in the morning? Anne, will
you look out for Arline Thayer and Ruth? That will leave Leona Rowe and
Helen Burton for me, and, oh, yes, I'll have a talk with Emma Dean."

To all appearances, Friday dawned as prosaically as had all the other
days of that week, but in the breasts of a number of the students of
Overton stirred an excitement that deepened as the day wore on. As is
frequently the case, the object of it all went calmly on her way, taking
a smug satisfaction in the thought that she was the only freshman
invited to the select gathering of sophomores who were to brave the
censure of the dean, and picnic by moonlight at Hunter's Rock. For
almost the first time since her arrival at college Elfreda felt her own
popularity. Despite her native shrewdness, she was particularly
susceptible to flattery. To be t