“Well, you will have to keep your ghosts, then,” Betty laughed finally. “Only don’t throw the blame on poor Mr. Morton or on Miss Bond, who didn’t hear anything. Why, maybe it’s you they’re haunting. The people who hear things are the ones to worry about being responsible, I should say.”
The Thorn refused to turn the matter into a pleasantry. “They’ve all heard the noises,” she explained, “the girls who room on the third floor. They asked me to come up last night and see what I thought.”
“And then speak to me?” asked Betty, annoyed that the Thorn should have been honored with an official mission.
“Well—if I thought best,” the Thorn admitted.
“All right,” said Betty cheerfully. “You can tell them what I’ve said—particularly what I think about the silliness of believing in ghosts. If they are troubled by any more noises, they can let me or Mrs. Post know, and we’ll look into it.”
“People do get the queerest ideas into their heads,” she sighed, when the Thorn had departed. “To-day it’s ghosts, ghosts everywhere, and to-morrow it will be something else.”
To-morrow’s trouble, as it proved when to-morrow came, was inspirations. Babbie had one—quite unrelated of course to the fact that she and Mr. Thayer could not agree about the prettiest furnishings for a library—to the effect that her mother was lonely and needed the society of her only child. And Madeline had one, which took the form of a plot for a drama that was certain to make Broadway “sit up and take notice.”
“But, Madeline,” Betty begged, “you can write that later. It’s getting very close to Christmas. You’ve got to take charge of the Tally-ho’s gift-shop department again. The Morton Hall girls will help, but they’re no good at planning. And neither am I.”
“Make the things we planned last year,” suggested Madeline promptly.
“You know that won’t do, Madeline,” Betty told her sternly. “All our best customers have bought dozens of extra-special candle-shades and Cupid cards and stenciled blotters. We can have some of those, for freshmen or girls who didn’t get around to buy last year. But it will all seem stale and left over and silly if we don’t have some grand new specialties. Please, Madeline!”