"It's a long day when you don't go to school, isn't it?"
Both girls sat up with a jerk and surveyed her sternly.
"Do you mean to say that you haven't been to school to-day?" they demanded in a breath, and Sue added, "I'd like to know why not."
"I had a bad headache this morning, Susan," explained the Imp sweetly. "Mother let me stay home. I was all right by two o'clock, though. Louis and I had a game of basketball before it began to rain."
Her companions glanced at each other with a meaning expression, none of which was lost on the Imp. With a grin of satisfaction, she proceeded:
"His aunt called him in just before we finished, and he didn't come out again."
With a visible effort, Sue inquired:
"Did he say why he wasn't at school to-day? We thought it rather queer when he didn't come, but perhaps, after the strange thing that happened yesterday—"
This was precisely the trap into which the Imp had planned that they should fall.