"Oh! yes, we will," cried Grace, "chests, and crannies, and closets, and wardrobes, and trap-doors without number. A regiment of soldiers might be hid away in this house and nobody the wiser."
Everybody was in the spirit of it now, and it was useless to oppose.
"Who shall hide first?" demanded Grace.
"Oh, your cousin, of course!" cried the captain. "She proposed the game."
I was voted in by acclamation.
"And you must take somebody with you, it will make it more exciting, but you must hide in separate places," added Grace.
"Very well; the captain must go out with me, and you must all go into the parlor, and promise, on your honor, to stay there five minutes by the clock, and then we give you leave to find us."
"We promise," said Ellerton; "but remember, you are to hide somewhere in the house, and to surrender yourselves in half an hour if you are not found before."
"Always provided," said the captain, shutting the parlor-doors upon them, "that we're not smothered in some old chest in the meantime."