tairs, and tried to
sing in order to break that oppressive silence. But her voice sounded
queer and trembly, and it made echoes that were worse than no sound at
all.

She had to go up two flights of stairs, and as she reached the top of
the second flight she was near her own classroom. As she turned the
doorknob, the street door, downstairs, which she had left open, suddenly
slammed shut with a loud bang. The sound reverberated through the
building, and Midget stood still, shaking with an unconquerable nervous
dread. She didn't know whether the door blew shut or had been slammed to
by some person. She no longer pretended to herself that she was not
frightened, for she was.

"I know I'm silly," she thought, as two big tears rolled down her
cheeks, "but if I can just get that book, and get out of here, won't I
run for home!"

Feeling her way, she stumbled into the classroom. A faint light came in
from the street, but not enough to allow her to distinguish objects
clearly. Indeed, it cast such wavering, ghostly shadows that the total
darkness was preferable.

Counting the desks as she went along, she came at last to her own, and
felt around in it for her speller.

"There you are!" she exclaimed, triumphantly, as she clutched the book.
And somehow the feeling of the familiar volume took away some of the
loneliness.

But her trembling fingers let her desk-cover fall with another of those
resounding, reechoing slams that no one can appreciate who has not heard
them under similar circumstances.

By this time Marjorie was thoroughly frightened, though she herself
could not have told what she was afraid of. Grasping the precious
speller, she started, with but one idea in her mind,--to get downstairs
and out of that awful building as quickly as possible.

She groped carefully for the newel-post, for going down was more
dangerous than coming up, and she feared she might fall headlong.

Safely started, however, she almost ran downstairs, and reached the
ground floor, only to find the front door had a spring-lock, which had
fastened itself when the door banged shut.

Marjorie's heart sank within her when she realized that she was locked
in the schoolhouse.

She thought of the key, but she had stupidly left that on the outside of
the door.

"But anyway," she thought, "I don't believe you have to have a key on
the inside. You don't to our front door at home. You only have to pull
back a little brass knob."

The thou