“Let’s all pretty much camp anywhere till to-morrow,” suggested the Professor. “I’d like to select my room by daylight.”
“I’ve made up some of the rooms, and some I ain’t,” volunteered Hester.
“Then, for Heaven’s sake, show us the made-up rooms, and get out!” burst forth Landon. “I wish we’d brought our maids, Milly; that woman affects me like fever and ague.”
But after a time they were assigned to various more or less inhabitable bedrooms, and as quickly as possible, all reappeared in the great hall below, ready for supper.
The dining room, toward the back of the house, was not half bad, after all the available lights had been commandeered for the table.
“You knew there were no electrics,” said Braye to Eve, who was bewailing the fact.
“Of course I did, and I thought candles would be lovely and picturesque and all that; and kerosene gives a good soft light, but—well, somehow,—do you know what I thought as we came through that dreadful wood?”
“What?”
“Only one sentence rang through my mind,—and that was,—The Powers of Darkness!”
“That isn’t a sentence,” objected the Professor, a little querulously, and everybody laughed. Also, everybody blessed the occasion for laughter.