t and
pillow case. It was rather difficult to manage the drapery without aid,
especially in the back and at the sides. The strange junior who had
chosen Robbie's name from the class list and undertaken to escort her to
the party found awaiting her a rumpled young ghost with raiment that
sagged and bagged quite distressingly in unexpected places. But the eyes
that shone from between the crooked bands of white were joyous with
excitement. In this disguise she was sure that no one would recognize
her; and so of course they would not know that she was queer, and perhaps
she would have fun at last.

And at first it really seemed as if she would. Imagine a big gymnasium
with jack-o'-lanterns on the rafters and a blazing wood-fire in the wide
fireplace, and five hundred figures in white circling and mingling among
the shadows, and at least a thousand sticks of candy, and three big
dish-pans full of peanuts, and gallons and gallons of red lemonade. When
her escort proposed that they should go up-stairs to look in upon the
seniors and sophomores who were having a country dance, Robbie Belle
moistened her lips and said, "If you please, don't wait for me. I enjoy
it so much here." Then at the junior's formal, "Oh, certainly, Miss
Sanders!" she remembered that often people did not understand her unless
she used a bothersome number of words. So she added hastily, "I mean that
you must go with your own friends and leave me here, because I am
watching some girls I know, and I want to speak to them. Please don't
trouble any more about me, thank you."

"I do know them," she assured herself as her escort disappeared, "and I
do want to speak to them even if they don't know me. I think"--she
hesitated and turned quite pale at the prospect of such daring, "I think
I shall go and play with them. They will suppose I am one of them. Nobody
will know."

At this point the file of impudent ghosts, headed by Berta, who looked
unusually tall and still angular under her flowing sheet, paraded past
Robbie Belle's corner, their elbows flapping like wings. With a gasp for
courage she took one step forward and found herself prancing along at the
end of the line.

It was such fun! Robbie Belle had shot up to an annoying stature so
comparatively early in life that her romping days seemed to have broken
short off in the middle. She had never had enough of tag and
hide-and-seek and coasting. She hated long skirts. Indeed that was one
reason why she lon