Toddlekins is down on us. He was more sinner than saint.
That's why he can't rest quietly."

"Doesn't he rest?" Jess's voice held a note of uneasiness.

"No, I don't think he does. I've a kind of feeling that he haunts the
place, coming back to find out what it's like now."

"An earth-bound spirit!" gasped Jess.

"Yes, he's got some sins to expiate, you see."

The conversation was growing creepy. Sadie, Tattie, Jess, and Peggy, who
with Diana were squatting near the schoolroom fire in the gloaming,
moved a little nearer together. There is comfort in physical contact.
The fact that Brother Lawrence was entirely an invention of Diana's did
not relieve the tenseness of the situation; she had talked about him so
often that she seemed to have conjured him up. They could almost see his
white habit gliding along the corridor, and his unsaintly eyes gleaming
from under his cowl. They began to wish he had behaved better during his
lifetime, or at any rate that he had not chosen to revisit the scenes of
his old sins.

"If I were really to see him I'd have forty fits!" shivered Peggy, who
was a superstitious little soul who threw spilt salt over her left
shoulder, and curtsied religiously to the new moon.

"It isn't everybody can see ghosts," declared Diana. "You've got to have
the psychic faculty. Some people can feel they're there, even when they
can't see them."

"Oh, that would be _far_ worse! It would be awful to know something was
in the room, and not be able to see it!" exploded Jess. "Tattie, may I
come and sleep in your bed to-night?"

"There's not much room, but you can if you like," conceded Tattie; "so
long as Geraldine doesn't find out."

"I'll creep in when she's asleep."

It was all very well for Diana to people the corridor with imaginary
monks; she knew they were images of her own creation; the more
weak-minded of her form mates, however, were frankly frightened. Nothing
spreads more readily than a ghost scare. Sadie, Jess, and Peggie were
bolting squealing along the passage one evening, when they almost
collided with Geraldine. She seized Jess by the arm, and pulled her into
the radius of the lamplight, nodding to the other two to follow.

"I want a word with you," she said. "It's high time you stopped this
ridiculous nonsense. I don't know who started it, but it's getting the
limit. Oh, yes! I know you go creeping into Tattie's bed when you think
I'm asleep, and you daren't walk upstairs alone. I'm