"But I can't tell you, Miss Allen. If I did I should have to leave dear old Wellington and this—opportunity means so much to me," and again she sobbed convulsively, while Jane put an affectionate arm around the little stranger.
Clapping of hands and calling out foolish warnings from below checked Jane's flow of sympathy, and presently she stumbled back to the recreation room propelling a mountain of blankets and comfortables.
"There. Just see what you have done," she charged the students who were instantly struggling for the blankets to the extent of practically disrobing the accommodating Jane. "Leave me my blouse, please do. It's the only real Jersey I possess. But aren't you ashamed to treat juniors this way?"
"Dreadfully!" drawled a girl already rolled like a cocoon in a pretty blue "wooley" and coiling up on a rug in the farthest corner. "Jane Alien, you're a perfect lamb, and I hope you'll stay with us forever."
"I am sure I have a congestive chill," chattered a fraud of a girl who almost upset Jane in the blanket rush. "Give me the pink one. It's my color," and another tug freed "the pink one" from its company of neatly folded coverlets.
"It is a shame," confessed someone else. "Come on upstairs, girls.
Let's defy the ghosts. I have always heard they shun a crowd.
Where's the crowd? Let's make them shun us."
"Second the motion and hurrah!" added Nellie Saunders. "Also we should put a price on that ghost's head—offer a reward for the capture. I'm willing to chip in, although as usual I'm a little short this week."
Dozia had been going over the house with Miss Gifford and just then both returned to the recreation room.
"Does anyone know where Miss Duncan is—Miss Shirley Duncan?" asked the matron, keeping her pencil at that name on her report pad.
Jane started involuntarily at the question. She had been secretly wondering where the rebellious Shirley was during all the excitement.