girls were ready to start. They wore
white gloves and white shoes and looked like a pair of very lively
ghosts.
Mr. Rose escorted them over to the Holmes Camp, or nearly there,--for it
was the plan that each phantom must sneak in as stealthily as possible,
in order to remain unknown.
So sometime before they reached their destination, Dotty ran on ahead,
and with great manoeuvring, managed to slip in unseen and saunter
among the crowd already gathered.
Silently, among the trees, Mr. Rose led Dolly until he saw a good
opportunity and then with a whispered "Scoot in there!" he indicated a
chance for her to make her entrance, and he himself went back home.
It was dusk, not dark, but the light of the big camp fire made
convenient shadows to screen the entrance of the guests.
It seemed a weird sight to Dolly as she somewhat timidly made her way
in. Twenty or thirty white-robed figures were bowing and scraping or
dancing wildly about or talking to each other in high squeaky voices and
short sentences.
"Know me?" somebody said, stopping in front of Dolly.
The voice seemed a little familiar, and yet Dolly couldn't quite place
it. It might be Jack Norris, or it might be one of the Holmes boys. But
in a spirit of fun she nodded her head affirmatively, with great vigour,
as if to declare that she knew the speaker perfectly well, but she would
not speak herself.
"Who?" squeaked the high voice, hoping Dolly would speak and thus reveal
her own identity.
But Dolly was too canny for this. Instead she joined together her thumb
and forefinger of each hand and held them up to her eyes, making circles
like eye-glass rims. Now, in sunny weather, Guy Holmes wore big glasses
with shell rims, and as this described him fairly well, it was a stroke
of triumph on Dolly's part. For it was Guy Holmes himself, and he
doubled up with laughter at the clever identification.
But he shook his head as if Dolly were greatly mistaken in her guess,
and so she didn't know whether she had been right or not.
When all had arrived, they danced in a circle round the fire, chanting
wild sounds that had no meaning or rhythm but were supposed to be
ghostlike wails and groans.
Then a game was played, under the direction of Mr. Holmes, by which it
was endeavoured to learn who the different phantoms were.
Their host led them to what was really the drying-ground for the family
laundry. A clothesline stretched on four posts formed a square, and
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