ose that the wind blowing through it could
make a noise like that?"

Ruth did not think it likely, but forbore to say so, and after half an
hour of quiet, weariness again asserted itself and she began to feel
agreeably drowsy. Then Amy caught her arm and with the startled pinch,
Ruth's hopes of sleep were indefinitely postponed.

"There it is again," said Amy, her teeth fairly chattering. "There's
that rustling."

"Sh!" Ruth whispered back and her hand found Amy's in the dark. This
time the rustling continued. It was a curiously elusive sound, as
difficult to locate as to understand. At one minute it seemed at the
foot of the bed, and again off in the corner of the room, and once Ruth
was almost sure that it was over her head. And that was the time when it
seemed to her that her heart must stop beating.

"Ruth!" Amy snatched away her hand in her consternation. "Ruth--I'm
going to sneeze!"

"You mustn't!" protested Ruth panic-stricken. What appalling
consequences were to be apprehended from so rash an act, she herself
could not have told. But she was certain that if Amy sneezed, her own
self-control would give way, and she would scream. "Smother it," she
commanded fiercely.

Amy grasped the sheet in a heroic effort to obey, but she was too late.
She sneezed, and to poor Ruth's unstrung nerves, the sound was only to
be compared in volume to a peal of thunder. The mysterious rustling
ceased, and just outside the door a board creaked.

"Girls!" The tentative whisper stole softly through the half-open door.
"Girls, are you awake?"

"Oh, Peggy!" There was untold relief in that brief welcome. Peggy's
presence brought a sense of reinforcement, even against supernatural
terrors. Noiselessly Peggy crept into the room, and perched on the edge
of the bed. Considering the lateness of the hour, her air was peculiarly
alert.

"I knew by Amy's sneeze that she was awake, too, and I thought I'd come
in. I never had such a wakeful night in my life."

"Have you been hearing things, too?" demanded Amy, with an immediate
accession of respect for her own fears if Peggy shared them.

Peggy hesitated. "Well, it hasn't seemed as quiet as most of the
nights," she replied, evasively.

"Rustling in all the corners, and the screen twanging, that's what we've
had," exclaimed Ruth in an excited whisper.

Peggy's silence indicated that such phenomena did not surprise her. "I
suppose," she remarked at length, in her most judicial manner