"What was that?" Amy questioned, but Mollie held up her hand impatiently.
There came the sound of some one stumbling over something. This was followed by a muttered exclamation.
While the girls looked about them wildly for a means of escape Mollie began to laugh hysterically.
"We have a visitor," she announced in a strangled voice. "And he is between us and the only door in the place. Come on, girls, let's see who it is."
They stepped out into the cluttered living room and came face to face with a young man who seemed more startled at seeing them than they had been at sight of him.
"Well, I'll be jiggered!" he exclaimed, and at sound of the commonplace phrase the girls could have hugged the speaker in relief. Also they felt a rather hysterical desire to laugh long and foolishly.
As it was, the stranger stood staring at the girls and the girls at him so long that the funny side of the situation struck Betty and she really did begin to laugh.
"We haven't the slightest idea who you are," she told the astonished young man. "But I am sure of one thing, and that is that we were never so glad to see any one in all our lives as we are to see you."