less.

"Yes. I thought it wasn't quite safe to leave the door unlocked, when I
would be in the third story, but I didn't want to have to hurry down to
let you in. I locked the front door on the outside, and hung up the key.
Then I went in by the back door and locked it on the inside."

"And you mean that you've been in the garret all these hours?" cried Amy
in accents of exasperation. Her face gave no hint of its usual
easy-going good-nature. Though the tears were still undried upon her
cheeks, ominous lightning played in her eyes. It really looked as if she
could not easily forgive Aunt Abigail for her failure to be kidnapped by
gypsies.

And just at the right moment somebody giggled. Among other benefits that
laughter confers on the race, it not infrequently serves as a lightning
conductor. With all the anxiety they had suffered, the situation was
ludicrous nevertheless. While they had agonized below stairs, Aunt
Abigail had sat on the garret floor, absorbed in a sensational serial
story, oblivious to everything but the next chapter. An uncontrollable
titter went the rounds. It gained volume, like a seaward flowing brook.
It swelled to a roar. And Amy, who for a moment had stood silent and
disdainful, as if she defied the current to sweep her off her feet, gave
up all at once, and laughed with the rest.

Aunt Abigail laughed too, though more as if she wished to appear
companionable than because she really saw the joke. When the silence of
exhaustion followed the uproar, and the girls were wiping their wet eyes
and each avoiding the glances of her neighbor, for fear of going off
into another paroxysm, Aunt Abigail made a remark which helped to
explain her failure to enter into the fun.

"I really hope you didn't wait dinner," repeated Aunt Abigail politely.
"And if--if it's the same to the rest of you, I vote for an early
supper."

CHAPTER XV

PRISCILLA'S LOOKING-GLASS

"In less than twenty-four hours Elaine will be here."

"You've been saying that for a week," Priscilla commented tartly. The
two girls had the porch to themselves, Priscilla stretched her lazy
length in the hammock, while Peggy had curled herself into the biggest
chair in a position which only a kitten or a school girl could by any
possibility consider comfortable. Life at Dolittle Cottage was not
favorable to _tete-a-tetes_, and Priscilla found ground for a
grievance in the fact that on one of the rare occasions when they were
alone