"But this wasn't a boy," explained Amy. "It was a woman, or a girl, dressed in a long, loose dress, like a light wrapper."
"How mysterious that sounds," cried Priscilla, and Peggy, who, to her great relief, had reached the end of the coming-out party, put in her word. "It's something new for the girls of the Terrace to go out playing Hallowe'en tricks."
"But it wasn't a Hallowe'en trick. There wasn't anything out of order this morning," Elaine insisted sharply.
"It was something, anyway. I was as wide awake as I am now. It walked back and forth half a dozen times, while I stood looking, and then it seemed to disappear. O, girls, you don't suppose--"
Amy's eyes were opened in a half-frightened stare. A girl of good sense in many respects, she had a vein of superstition in her make-up which was one of her greatest weaknesses. Peggy broke into a ringing laugh.
"The Spook on the Porch," she cried, "or the Mystery of Friendly Terrace. O, Amy, what an imagination you have!"
"It wasn't imagination at all," Amy persisted stubbornly. "It was a woman or something--in a trailing dress. I wasn't scared a bit. I just thought it was a Hallowe'en prank."
"Don't you think it's a lot colder to-day?" asked Elaine of the company in general. Her tone was a little stiff, and Peggy, glancing in her direction, was surprised to see a flush of annoyance on her new friend's face. Mrs. Marshall, too, had an air of having heard enough about this nocturnal intruder. It was necessary to change the subject promptly, especially as Amy and Priscilla seemed disposed to fall into an argument as to what Amy had really seen.
"I haven't asked you yet if you'd help in our Bazar, have I?" exclaimed Peggy, addressing Elaine. "It's the tenth of this month. It was the tenth we decided on at last, wasn't it, Ruth?"
"Yes, the tenth," Ruth replied, and Priscilla took up the explanation. "It's for the Empty Stocking Club. We buy dolls with the money we make, and dress them afterward."