“I suppose I would, or maybe I’d be too frightened to make a sound! But I don’t believe it was a ‘ghost’ or would hurt anybody. Come on, we’d better get to sleep. We’ll all take you and Avalon to your room and see that there isn’t anybody there and then you can lock your door.”
“Wait till I fix Avalon some peppermint and soda,” said Hilary. “That’s Mother’s favorite remedy.”
The peppermint and soda taken, a dose for Isabel as well, and the two younger girls were escorted back to their own beds, Avalon tucked in, while Isabel with her flashlight waited to lock the door after the girls had departed. Hilary had wanted to take flashlights down the halls and look for the “Woman in Black,” but Cathalina said that it would be foolish to do it, for somebody bad might really be about and nobody wanted to find her—or him.
“Do you suppose we ought to wake up one of the teachers, then?” asked Hilary.
“No; I believe Isabel imagined half, or else it was one of the girls that had been sitting up studying and didn’t want to be caught or wanted to scare Isabel or something.”
But the next morning Alma came to Isabel’s room and told her that Miss Randolph wanted to see her right away. Isabel immediately rushed to Cathalina. “O, Cathalina, Alma says I’m to come to Miss Randolph’s room right away. What do you suppose she’s going to do to me?”
“Nothing, goosey, you haven’t done anything wrong.”
“But I broke a rule to be out of my room.”
“You had a good reason. Just tell her the way you would your own mother—,” then Cathalina wished she had not said just that, for Isabel had never even know her mother. “I mean that she is kind and nice.”
“Well, anyhow, please,—please, Cathalina, go with me!”