"My heart thumps like a mouse in the wall. I'm going to get out of this
place. I feel as if there's a ghost in here. It creeps all over me. I
can't get my breath."

Dotty rose cautiously; but she had been lying so long in a cramped
position that both her feet were asleep. While trying to recover her
balance she caught at something, which proved to be a glass jar of
raspberry jam. The cover came off, and the jam poured down her neck in
a thick stream.

"My beautiful white dress with the red spots! Who put that dirty thing
in my way? Smells like purserves. They ought to be ashamed!"

Dotty tried bearing her weight on both feet, and found she could walk.

"But I've whirled round three or four times. I didn't ever know which
way to go, and now I'm sure I don't know so well as I did in the first
place. If I step any more, perhaps I'll step into some molasses."

Dotty's meditations were becoming more confused than ever. Now it was
not only ghosts, but jam and jelly which went to make up the terrors of
the situation. But she was growing desperate. She groped right and left,
saying to herself,--

"Where's the _out_?"

At last she came to the door, which she had unconsciously closed when
she entered the pantry. She opened it, and her eyes were greeted with
light. It was the moon shining in at the kitchen windows.

Her fears vanished. She was just wondering whether to return to the
parlor in a forgiving spirit, or to stay away and make everybody
unhappy, when a strange, horrible object met her view,--not white, but
yellow.

Was it--was it--a truly, truly _ghost_? O, it must be a ghost on fire!
It hadn't any sheet round it. Nothing was to be seen but a hideous head
peeping in at the window. No man ever looked like that. No man ever had
such a mouth. It was as deep as a cave, and all ablaze. Somebody had
gone and swallowed a stove; somebody had come to do--do--O, what had he
come to do?

"It's a yellow ghost!" thought Dotty. "I didn't know they had such a
kind. Angeline never said so. But its eyes are just like her ghosts'
eyes--going to burn you up!"

These thoughts darted through Dotty's mind like lightning-flashes. At
the same time she gave one loud, terrified scream, and fell forward upon
the floor. She did not rise, she did not speak, she seemed scarcely to
breathe. The shock had partially stunned her.

"Why, Dotty--Dotty Dimple!" exclaimed Percy, rushing in at the back
door, and seizing his little cousin by t