the wind was howling outside
and the rain beating fast against the windows, and very hard to throw
them back and get up in the dark, chilly mornings, when the dressing
bell was ringing in the passage outside.

Sylvia's eider-down quilt once caused her an experience which gave her
a greater fright than she had ever had in her life before. She had
been to sleep for what seemed to her several hours, and woke suddenly
with a curious sense that someone besides herself and Linda was in the
room. It seemed to her as if her quilt were being very gently but
surely pulled from her bed. Wideawake in an instant, she pulled it
back and lay listening with strained ears. There was nothing to be
heard but Linda's placid breathing and the drip of the rain from the
spout outside the window. Again the quilt slowly began to move, and
this time she was certain she caught a slight sound. Could it be
possible that a burglar was concealed under her bed? The idea was too
dreadful, and a cold shiver ran through her. What was she to do? She
did not dare to call to Linda; she felt as if her tongue would refuse
to utter a cry, and perhaps if she did the man would at once crawl
out. The room was not quite dark, as a fitful moon shone in through
the blind between the storm clouds, and to poor Sylvia it made the
horror almost worse to know that she would be able to see somebody
rise up suddenly by her bedside.

"I'd give him anything and everything he wants to steal," she thought,
"if only he wouldn't frighten me so. Oh, I wonder whether he's really
there or not!"

She held the edge of the quilt in her hand. Was it slipping once more?
Yes, it was most undoubtedly being pulled from her grasp, and, as her
hair nearly stood on end with fear, she heard an unmistakable sneeze
from somewhere just underneath her bed. She gave a little agonized
gasp of terror, and at the same moment something sprang up and plumped
on to her chest. Nearly dead with fright, she yet managed to look, and
to her astonishment beheld only the waving tail and round green eyes
of Toby, the school cat, which, settling himself comfortably, began to
claw the quilt with his paws, purring his loudest the while as if
quite proud and pleased with himself. Sylvia sat up in bed and laughed
heartily at her burglar.

"Toby, you wretch," she cried, stroking his soft fur, "how did you
manage to get in here? I suppose it was you that was trying to tug my
quilt from me. No doubt you wanted to