After a time the slight brushing of exploring hands and fluttering garments against the corridor walls, told of the otherwise silent flight of nine girlish forms down the long, dark hallway. Then Henrietta’s door closed with a tiny click and for fully fifteen minutes afterwards sounds of suppressed mirth sifted back to Miss Woodruff’s patient but approving ears.
The house was silent when the great clock in the lower hall boomed “One.” Victoria, who had been dreaming in an entirely unprecedented manner, suddenly awoke, to experience a curious sense of physical discomfort. Something was wrong. She groped for the bedclothes. They were gone. She stretched out both hands and her groping fingers came in contact with a firm, level, cold surface not unlike hardwood floor. She moved her fingers—it was floor. No other polished surface had those regularly recurring cracks, Victoria, much alarmed, crept on hands and knees, about the empty room. The window was open, the door closed. With a little gasp of relief, she opened it.
“Thank goodness!” breathed tremulous Victoria, groping about in the hallway, “I’m not locked in. But where in the world am I? Here’s another door.”
It opened. Here, window shades were up and puzzled Victoria made out the outlines of three beds. Her bare toes touched the big fur rug that she knew belonged to Anne Blodgett, her opposite neighbor. The feel of a familiar object in this world of uncertainties was a comforting sensation.
“Anne!” gasped chattering Victoria, plunging bodily into Anne’s bed. “I’m frightened to pieces! If that was my room that I’ve just come out of there isn’t a thing left in it. My bed—even Lillian and Augusta have been stolen. Burglars—or something—carried off every single thing but me. I suppose I was too heavy. I found the window open.”
Anne giggled. There were giggles from the other beds. Victoria guessed the truth. Then having much good sense back of her shortcomings she giggled too.
“Well,” she laughed, “that was a great joke on me, all right. I might be brave enough if I happened to be awake; but what’s the use of courage when a burglar with any enterprise at all could carry me right off to the next county without waking me up.”
“Did you really think it was a sure enough burglar?” asked Anne.
“Yes, I did,” returned honest Victoria, snuggling closer to Anne’s warm body, “and I was simply scared pink. When I found that window wide open instead of just a few inches I was sure somebody had climbed in and carried off everything but me—and I wasn’t sure he hadn’t taken me as well. I could just see a great big black burglar going up and down a long ladder, with bundles on his back, and a partner down below to help him with the heavy ones.”
“We didn’t mean to scare you as much as that,” said Anne, “but you certainly are a fine sleeper. We pulled you around a lot.”