Besides their studies, the girls had the Ghost Club to think about and the importance of initiating new members. They had decided upon two of the freshmen for the honor, one, a fair-haired intelligent girl named Ann Fleming and the second a laughing imp of a girl with red hair and red-brown eyes who bore the name of Ada Slope.
Both girls stood well in their studies and showed a remarkable popularity among their classmates considering the short time they had been at the Hall.
And of course they were overwhelmed with joy when Billie drew them aside one day and ordered them to be in the gymnasium at not later than nine o’clock that night.
They were there before nine, shivering in the darkness of the big gymnasium and wishing that this fearful business of being initiated were over and done with.
A few minutes later the “ghosts” arrived and put the girls through a series of trials that tested their courage and endurance to the limit.
They were made to “walk the plank” blindfolded; they were prepared for “branding with a red-hot poker” and then touched with a lump of ice that made them cry out in imagined pain; they were handed all sorts of slimy things, harmless in themselves but terrifying to the overstrained nerves of the girls.
But they came out of the test with flying colors, and the members of the club were well satisfied with their choice.
“And now,” said Rose Belser—who was still president of the club—as the handkerchiefs were removed from the eyes of the new members, “we are about to put to the test a new rule suggested by a fellow ghost.”
The girls held their breath, for the announcement was a surprise to all but Billie, who had herself made the suggestion.
“It occurred to this fellow-member of our illustrious club,” Rose went on in a deep voice, looking very weird and ghostly in her long white ceremonial robe, with only slits cut in it for the eyes and nose and mouth, “that it is only fair to the new members who have stood the test, to suggest some difficult feat for one of the old members to perform—this person to be chosen by the new members of the club.”