willing to have her stop. It was quarter of eleven when Peggy
remarked reluctantly: "Girls, if we're going to get up any time
to-morrow, we'd better-be going to bed."

The suggestion was not received with enthusiasm. Priscilla declared that
she wasn't a bit sleepy, and the others all echoed the statement. Then
Aunt Abigail was appealed to, for just one more, and complied without
any pretence of reluctance. Aunt Abigail was enjoying herself hugely,
and it was characteristic of her amiable irresponsibility that it never
occurred to her that there might be undesirable consequences, from thus
stimulating the vivid imaginations of a party of sensitive girls.

It was very near midnight when at last they filed up-stairs to bed. The
fire was out, after having played its part so efficiently as to render
it necessary to open to its widest extent every door and window in the
cottage. It was a rather silent crowd that climbed the stairs. The girls
went to their respective rooms without any of the laughter and gay
chatter which usually characterized the hour of retiring. Peggy said to
herself that they were all too tired to talk.

But Amy knew better. While Peggy shared Dorothy's quarters, and
Priscilla and Claire occupied the room next to Aunt Abigail's, Amy and
Ruth were tucked into a snug little box of a bedroom on the opposite
side of the hall. As Amy hastily lighted the candle on the little table
at the side of the bed, she turned a perturbed face on her roommate.

"Oh, why did I let her do it?" she exclaimed tragically. "Why did I ever
listen? I know I'm not going to sleep a wink to-night."

"Why, Amy, what nonsense!" Ruth remonstrated, but she was aware that her
heartbeats had quickened. It was one thing to listen to Aunt Abigail's
harrowing recitals, in a room made cheerful by firelight and
companionship, and another to recall the same horrors in comparative
solitude. "You're not foolish enough to believe in things of that sort,"
Ruth remarked, with a brave effort to maintain her air of superiority.

"No, I'm not foolish enough to _believe_ in them," Amy
acknowledged, "but I'm foolish enough so they scare me dreadfully. Oh,
dear! Won't I be glad when it is to-morrow!"

She repeated the wish a little later, when both girls were in bed, and
Ruth answered her a trifle tartly that it _was_ very nearly
to-morrow, and that she wanted to go to sleep some time before morning,
if Amy didn't. Then for a matter of thirty minutes