ed in with her usual noiseless tread. She laid her hand over Peggy's
mouth without a word, and stood motionless, seeming to listen. Then she
said aloud and deliberately:

"Yes, I must go this minute. I had no idea it was so late. Suppose Miss
Pugsley should catch us! You know she goes around and listens at the
doors every now and then, and looks through the keyholes to see what is
going on."

"Oh, Grace!" said Peggy.

"Fact, I assure you. I sometimes wonder what Miss Russell would say if
she knew it. That isn't her own style, you see. The fun of it is, the
other never realises that the wheeze gives her away every time."

Grace Wolfe had the ears of a fox; but, in the pause that followed, even
Peggy heard, or fancied she heard, a breathing outside the door. It was
only for an instant, if, indeed, it had been at all; yet in another
moment a board creaked somewhere along the corridor, and again in a
moment came the slight but unmistakable sound of a closing door.

Grace laughed, and pirouetted merrily on one foot, looking in the
moonlight like a glimmering sprite.

"Oh, Grace!" repeated Peggy, aghast. "Was she--could she have been
there, do you think?"

"She could very easily have been there. Innocent," replied the
Scapegoat. "Indeed, she was. I saw the glitter of her eye, and a sweet
thing it was."

"Oh, but how could you? how dared you? Surely, you will get into
dreadful trouble, Grace."

"Not I!" said Grace. "She can't report me, you observe, without saying
that she was listening at the door. And even if she did, Miss Russell
would ask her what I said, and she would be sad and sorry to relate
that. No! this time I am safe enough, my Prairie Flower. But come, now
that I am here, shall we be merry?

"The owl is abroad, the bat, and the toad,
And so is the catamountain.

"Shall the Goat be lacking on such a night as this, or the Wolf either?
One has one's responsibilities toward one's names. Come, Innocent, we'll
go abroad and celebrate my victory over my Puggy!"

Grace's tone was as quiet as ever, but she was more excited than Peggy
had ever seen her. Her eyes shone; her hair, which was very beautiful,
was unbraided for some reason--one never knew what whim would seize the
whimsical one--and hung like a mantle about her shoulders. Standing
thus, with her hand on the window, she looked, as I have said, like a
creature from another world.

"Come!" she repeated; and Peggy had never heard swe