“And what did the ghost do then?” asked Betty.
“It just groaned once more louder than ever, and then it stopped, and everything was just awfully still. So I got into bed with Sarah and Helen, and I s’pose I went to sleep. But Shirley was so scared that she couldn’t move, and she stayed awake and saw it.”
“You mean she was so scared that she imagined that she saw it, dearie,” Betty amended. “There aren’t any ghosts, you know, really and truly, Dottie.”
“Well, there are burglars,” Dorothy insisted, “and anyway, it wasn’t a mouse. And what Shirley saw was a tall white ghost with its hands over its face—so.” Dorothy illustrated graphically. “And in the morning we told Miss Dick, and she laughed, but Kitty Carson’s window has a fire-escape, and she sleeps so sound that anybody could go in and out that way. We know she is just as scared as we are because there’s a man come this very afternoon to put bars on her window.”
“Well, then you’ll be quite safe to-night,” Betty assured her comfortably. “Didn’t I ever tell you about our Scotch ghosts?”
“Yes, but please do it again,” begged Dorothy, “because I’ve most forgotten, and then I can tell the girls. We’re so interested in ghosts just now.”
So Betty told about the ghost that Madeline and Mr. Dwight had invented to add the finishing touch to Babbie’s ancestral castle at Oban. “Ghosts that little girls see are always like that,” she ended, “just jokes that somebody has played for fun. If Shirley really saw anything it was some big girl who’d dressed up on purpose to frighten you little ones.”
“It couldn’t be.” The Smallest Sister’s tone was very positive. “There’s a chimney next to our wall on Shirley’s side where the noises were. No girl could crawl up a chimney. Nothing could get there but a ghost.”
“Or a mouse,” interpolated Betty sceptically.
“Mice don’t groan,” Dorothy reminded her. “If it was a girl—but it couldn’t be, because how could a girl get in the chimney?—and Miss Dick ever finds out who it was, why, I shouldn’t care to be in her shoes, I just guess! Shirley got so scared it made her sick. She’s gone to the infirmary to-day.”