Again the manuscript was raised and again Lucy stopped her with the wail, "Oh, Gay! We've forgotten to bring up the silver pitcher and Jameson's ladle. I put them on the dining-room table after I'd washed them, and then marched off and forgot them."
"Well, I'll go down for them," volunteered Gay. "There's no use in your doing it and getting another fit of shivers."
The other three sprang up, but Gay waved Betty back.
"Save your breath for the reading. Kitty and Lloyd will be enough. I don't mind acknowledging that I'll be glad to have both a rear and a vanguard going through that dark hall."
Lighting a candle and holding it high above her head, Lloyd led the way down-stairs. Gay was inwardly quaking, for she was almost as timid as her sister, but the fearlessness of her two companions made her keep up a pretence of bravery. As the three pairs of little heels clattered down the dark polished steps, Lloyd and Kitty kept time in a singsong chant:
"There was a man and he had naught
And robbers came to rob him.
He got up on the chimney top
And then they thought they had him.
But he got down on the other side
And then they couldn't find him
He went fourteen miles in fifteen days
And never looked behind him."
It was almost cruel of Kitty to seize that opportunity to tell the scariest burglar tale that she had ever heard, but a fine appreciation of dramatic situations urged her to it.
"Ugh! Don't!" begged Gay, as they filed into the dining-room and began looking around for the silver heirlooms. Lucy was mistaken. It was the kitchen table on which she had left them.
"The goose-flesh is standing out all over me! That's the most gruesome tale I ever heard."