Meantime, the other girls began to suspect that Lou had fallen into ambush, and sent out a scout to reconnoiter, and it was not many seconds before the scout came scuttling back with the alarming information that the enemy was close at hand; in fact, that she was even now coming upon them in force, for, when Mother Stone found that Lou did not come from the bath-room as promptly as she thought she should, all her suspicions were instantly aroused, and she was keen to make discoveries.
The girls had planned to meet in Toinette’s room, and creep from there to the old laundry as soon as all were assembled. About a dozen were already there, but, when the scout returned with such dire tidings, they decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and all made haste to get back to their rooms ere the enemy appeared. But, alack-a-day! that enemy could flit about in a surprisingly lively manner, and, ere some of them had reached safety behind their own doors, she came in view. To get to their rooms now was out of the question, so, making a virtue of necessity, they all slipped into a large closet used by the housemaids for their brooms, etc.
Whether it was from a wholesome fear that Miss Preston would be very apt to criticize a too pronounced vigilance that Mrs. Stone refrained from opening the girls’ doors, but contented herself with simply listening, I cannot say, but if she heard no sound within she always passed on and left them to their innocent (?) slumbers. So on she went from one room to another, but, luckily, the alarm had gone before, and at each room darkness and profound silence prevailed. Satisfied that “all was well,” she murmured something about, “It is always well to be upon the alert, for once the girls understand that someone is sure to detect the first signs of mischief, they are far less liable to carry it to excess,” she set off for her own room. In passing by the housemaid’s door she saw that it was not tightly closed and locked, as was the custom at night, and, with a joyous chuckle at her own astuteness, she pounced upon it, locked the door, and withdrawing the key sailed triumphantly to her room, where, serene in her sense of well-doing, she fell as sound asleep as her nature permitted.
Meantime, how fared it with the mice in the trap? When the key was turned in the door, and they were made prisoners, nothing but the pitch darkness which enveloped them as a garment prevented each girl’s face from plainly announcing to her neighbor: “Here is a pretty kettle of fish!” There were five in the closet: Ruth, Edith, Pauline, May and Marie. Luckily, a resourceful party. When all sound from the hall had ceased, Ruth gave just one howl, and then jumped up and down three times as hard as she could jump, by way of giving vent to her state of mind. Fortunately, the door was a heavy one and the sound did not reach Mother Stone’s ears.
“You crazy thing!” exclaimed Edith, “next thing you know you will have her after us again.”
“Suppose we do; we’ve got to get out somehow, haven’t we?”
“Yes, but she is the last one in the world we want to let us out. What a fix! If the girls only knew of it, they would come and let us out.”
“How could they when she has the key, I’d like to know?”
Edith groaned: “I never thought of that plagued old key. Bother take her and it, too! Why couldn’t she have gone to bed just as everybody else did, and have minded her own business, too.”
“That was exactly what she thought she was doing,” laughed May.