"Suppose no one should come; we might have to stay all night."
"They may think that we've run away, and so they won't look for us."
"Oh, some one will remember that we didn't go downstairs; they'll come up here the first thing."
"No, no, don't you remember how the others all ran down ahead of us? They won't remember."
"Gretchen's the only one who might think of this room. I told her the other day that I meant to come in some time."
"That won't do no good," rejoined Haleema; "she'll be glad to have you shut up."
"We're better off here than we would be in that trunk," continued Haleema thoughtfully. "I read a poem the other day about a girl that got shut up in a chest, and she did not get out until she was dead. She was an Italian, too," she said, looking suggestively toward Concetta, "and her name was Jinerva."
Whereupon Concetta began to weep softly, either in sympathy for her countrywoman or from fear that as an Italian she was more likely to suffer than the others.
"Oh, that's nothing," said Inez; "why, we had a history lesson once about the Black Hole. Everybody that went into it died, and there were dozens of people."
"Why did they go in?" asked Concetta with a languid interest.