t seems ages since we have done anything
lively. Now that we are ovah the measles it's wastin' time to be sittin'
heah so poky and stupid. What can we do, mothah?"

"Let's tell ghost stories," said Mrs. Sherman, who knew what was going
to happen in a short time, and wanted to keep the girls occupied until
then. "I know a fine one," she began, sinking her voice to a creepy
undertone that made the girls cast uneasy glances behind them. "It's all
about a haunted house that has clanking chains in the cellar, and
muffled footsteps, and icy fingers that c-lutch you by the throat on the
stairs as the clock tolls the midnight hour."

"Ugh! How good and spooky!" said Joyce, with a little shiver. "I love
that kind."

They drew their chairs around Mrs. Sherman to listen, so interested in
the story that two of the Bobs rolled over each other and off the high
porch, and nobody noticed their whining. Presently, in the most
thrilling part of her story, Mrs. Sherman paused and pointed
impressively down the avenue.

"Oo-oo-oo! what is it? Ghosts?" shrieked the Little Colonel, her teeth
chattering, and in such haste to throw herself into her mother's arms
that her chair turned over with a bang.

"It is a pillow-case party," answered Mrs. Sherman, laughing, "but it is
certainly the most ghostly-looking affair that I ever saw."

Down the long avenue toward them came a wavering line of white-sheeted,
masked figures. They had square heads, and great round holes for eyes,
and the candle that each one carried flashed across a hideous grinning
face, whose mouth and nose had been drawn with burnt cork. The leader of
this strange procession was a veritable giant,--the Goliath of all the
ghosts,--for he loomed up above them to nearly twice the height of the
tallest one in the line. It took two sheets to cover him; one flapped
about his long thin legs, and one swung from his shoulders, swaying from
side to side as he moved noiselessly along with gigantic strides.

"Oh, mothah, it's awful!" whispered the Little Colonel, clinging around
Mrs. Sherman's neck.

"It is almost enough to frighten one," she replied. "But they are all
friends of yours, Lloyd. For instance, the giant is nobody but your good
friend and playfellow, Robby Moore, on stilts; and somewhere in that
bunch of little tots at the tail end of the procession are those funny
little Cassidy twins, Bethel and Ethel. They begged so hard to be
allowed to come that their mother at last