silence reigned. The
hour was late and the girls were tired. In spite of her gloomy prophecy,
Amy was surprised and pleased to find a delicious drowsiness creeping
over her.

All at once she sat up in bed. "Ruth," she exclaimed in a frightened
whisper, "what was that?"

"What was what?"

"That rustling noise."

"O, Amy!" Ruth's whispered exclamation conveyed an extraordinary amount
of exasperation for three syllables. And then as Amy remained up-right,
staring intently into the darkness, Ruth was conscious of a curious
pricking of the scalp. For she herself distinctly heard the sound to
which Amy referred, and, truth to tell, it was not unlike the rustling
of the unseen garments which had figured so frequently in the stories to
which they had lately been listening.

"I can hear it as plain as anything, Amy. Do you suppose it is the
maple-tree back of the window?"

"Of course it's the maple-tree," Ruth replied in a husky whisper. How
she envied Amy. Amy frankly acknowledged to being a coward, and poor
Ruth wished that she herself did not have a reputation for courage to
sustain. For certainly that sound was not the whisper of the wind in the
boughs of the maple. It was in the room, apparently at the foot of the
bed.

A long silence followed Ruth's bravely mendacious assurance. Amy lay
down at length and drew the coverlet over her head. The thumping of
Ruth's heart gradually steadied into an ordinary beat. Just as she was
telling herself that Amy's foolish fancies had made her nervous, and she
had imagined the peculiar sound, her heart jumped again. Amy's shivering
body suddenly huddled against hers, gave convincing testimony to the
fact that Ruth's ears were not the only ones to catch something unusual.

"What do you suppose it is?" choked Amy.

This time Ruth made no attempt to hold the maple-tree responsible. "I
don't know," she whispered. The sound that vibrated through the room was
such as might be produced if a finger-nail were drawn across the window
screen. The thought entered Ruth's mind, that perhaps some one was
trying to enter the room by the window, and supernatural horrors paled
beside this possibility.

But this demonstration also was succeeded by a puzzling silence.
Gradually the tense muscles of the two frightened girls relaxed, and
they ventured to exchange perplexed comments on the mysterious
interruptions to the peace of the night. "It certainly was the screen,"
declared Amy. "Do you supp