"Oh, Grace!" said Peggy.
"Fact, I assure you. I sometimes wonder what Miss Russell would say if she knew it. That isn't her own style, you see. The fun of it is, the other never realises that the wheeze gives her away every time."
Grace Wolfe had the ears of a fox; but, in the pause that followed, even Peggy heard, or fancied she heard, a breathing outside the door. It was only for an instant, if, indeed, it had been at all; yet in another moment a board creaked somewhere along the corridor, and again in a moment came the slight but unmistakable sound of a closing door.
Grace laughed, and pirouetted merrily on one foot, looking in the moonlight like a glimmering sprite.
"Oh, Grace!" repeated Peggy, aghast. "Was she—could she have been there, do you think?"
"She could very easily have been there. Innocent," replied the Scapegoat. "Indeed, she was. I saw the glitter of her eye, and a sweet thing it was."
"Oh, but how could you? how dared you? Surely, you will get into dreadful trouble, Grace."
"Not I!" said Grace. "She can't report me, you observe, without saying that she was listening at the door. And even if she did, Miss Russell would ask her what I said, and she would be sad and sorry to relate that. No! this time I am safe enough, my Prairie Flower. But come, now that I am here, shall we be merry?
"The owl is abroad, the bat, and the toad,
And so is the catamountain.
"Shall the Goat be lacking on such a night as this, or the Wolf either? One has one's responsibilities toward one's names. Come, Innocent, we'll go abroad and celebrate my victory over my Puggy!"