_ superior. By the by,
Stars and Stripes, what were you just going to tell us?"

"Nothing particular."

Diana was looking preoccupied, as if her thoughts were far away.

"I'm sure it was," urged Sadie. "Don't be mean! Go on!"

"I've changed my mind. No, I'm _not_ going to tell you. It's no use
bothering me, for I just shan't."

"I think everybody's horrid to-night," said Sadie, turning away much
offended.

It was on the very next evening that Ida Beckford, going to her bedroom
in the gloaming, caught a glimpse of a white-robed figure with a cowl
over its head gliding along the passage and up the stairs. Ida was not
so strong-minded as Geraldine. She turned the colour of pale putty, and
went straight downstairs again to relate her psychic experience to her
fellow seniors. She did not meet with the sympathy she expected.

"Some silly trick of those intermediates," sniffed Hilary.

"I'll be down on them if they go shamming spooks," threatened Geraldine.

"If it happens again we'll set a watch and catch it," declared Stuart
loftily.

Ida cheered up at this mundane view of the matter, and recovered her
colour; but she abandoned the blotter she was going to fetch, and stayed
in her form-room instead of walking upstairs again. The news began to
creep about the school, however, that the Abbey was being haunted by a
spiritual visitor. Many of the girls saw it glide along the landing in
the dusk, and disappear up a certain narrow flight of stairs. Now herein
lay the mystery. The stairs went up ten steps in full view of the
passage, then they turned a sharp corner, rounded a yard of landing, and
with four more steps ended in a locked attic door. Several of the most
venturesome members of the school had tried to follow the figure, but
when they came round the corner, to their immense surprise it had
utterly disappeared. And there was absolutely no place in which it could
possibly have concealed itself.

"Has it crept through the keyhole?" quavered Peggy.

"Or just vanished into thin air?" speculated Magsie.

"The door's really locked!" declared Vi, rattling the handle again to
make sure.

"We certainly _saw_ it go up, but it's not here now!"

"Flesh and blood can't disappear in a second!"

"It's most uncanny!"

"The old Cistercians wore white habits."

"I say, I don't like this!"

Brother Lawrence, as the girls began to call the apparition, showed
himself frequently, but always with the same elusiveness. The