"Girls!" cried a clear and well-known voice. "Girls! Stop! What are you doing here?"

There was no mistaking the tone of command of the head-mistress. Four amazed and crestfallen damsels halted and turned back, to find Miss Burd, attired in a white dressing-gown, standing in the moonlight on the gra.s.s.

"What is the meaning of this?" she asked. "And why aren't you all in bed?"

It is always difficult to give explanations, and (to such a matter-of-fact person as Miss Burd) it seemed particularly silly to have to confess that they had come out ghost-hunting, and had mistaken her for a spirit. She emptied the vials of her scorn upon their dejected heads.

"Don't let me hear of any more nonsense of this sort!" she finished. "I should have thought you were too intelligent to believe in such rubbish.

As for leaving your dormitory at this hour, you deserve to be locked in the cycle-shed for the night. I shall, of course, report you to Mrs.

Best, and none of you will play tennis for a week, as a punishment."

Miss Burd, bristling with anger, swept the delinquents before her to the door of the hostel, and watched them flee upstairs, then went to lay the matter before Mrs. Best.

In Dormitory 2, four girls got into bed at topmost speed.

"Of all the ill-luck!" mourned Fil.

"I didn't know Miss Burd prowled about the garden in a dressing-gown,"

exclaimed Ingred.

"She _did_ look exactly like a ghost!" confirmed Verity.

"Tennis off for a whole week! Blossom will be furious! It's too absolutely grizzly for anything!" groused Nora. "I wish the wretched old ghost had been at Jericho before we went to look for it!"

CHAPTER XX

Under the Lanterns

It is an ill wind that blows n.o.body good, and though Nora, Fil, Ingred, and Verity might chafe at being debarred from tennis for a whole week, their adventure in the garden had given them an idea. How it exactly originated could not be decided, for each fiercely claimed the full credit for it. Its evolution, however, was somewhat as follows:

Stage 1. How lovely the garden looked in the evening.

Stage 2. Why should we not _all_ enjoy it some time?

Stage 3. Miss Burd evidently does.

Stage 4. And looked very fascinating in her white dressing-gown.

Stage 5. It was exactly like a fancy dress.

Stage 6. Why should not we all wear fancy dress?

Stage 7. _Let us ask Miss Burd to let the hostel have a fancy-dress dance in the school garden._

Great minds generally think in company, and often hit upon the same invention at the same moment, so perhaps all four girls had an equal share in the brain-wave. They communicated it cautiously to companions, and as it "caught on" they sounded Mrs. Best, and finding her favorably disposed to the scheme, begged her to intercede for them with Miss Burd.

The head-mistress was wonderfully gracious about the matter, gave full permission for the dance, promised to be present herself, and allowed the invitation to be extended to any mistresses and seniors who would care to join the party. It was quite a long time since the hostel had had any particularly exciting doings, so that the girls flung themselves into their preparation with much enthusiasm. Those who were lucky enough already to possess fancy costumes, or who were able to borrow them, of course scored, and the rest set to work to manufacture anything that came to hand. It was to be in the nature of an impromptu affair, but a few days' notice was given, and the girls were able to devote a Sat.u.r.day to the all-absorbing problem. Ingred, home for the week-end, enlisted the help of Mother and Quenrede, and turned the bungalow almost upside down in her quest for suitable accessories. She thought of a number of characters she would have liked to impersonate, but was always balked by the lack of some vital article of dress.

"It's no use!" she lamented. "I can't be 'Joan of Arc' without a suit of armor, or 'Queen Elizabeth' when I haven't a flowered velvet robe! I'm so tired of all the old things! It's too stale to twist some roses in my hair for 'Summer,' and I've been a gipsy so often that everybody knows my red handkerchief and gilt beads. I'd as soon be a Red Indian squaw!"

"And why shouldn't you be?" asked Quenrede. "It's a remarkably pretty costume."

"Oh, I dare say, if I could beg, borrow, or steal it!"

"You've no need to do either, my dear. I've had a brain-wave, and we'll fix it up for you at home. Yes, I mean it! Allow me to introduce myself: 'Miss Quenrede Saxon, Court Costumier. The very latest theatrical productions.' I'll make you look so that your own mother will hardly know you!"

"I'd like to puzzle them!" rejoiced Ingred. "Miss Burd said she should have a parade, and hinted something about a prize. They always give points to whoever has the best disguise. Masks are barred, but we may paint our faces. I think I shall be rather choice as a squaw!"

"You ought to have me with you as your 'brave'!" chuckled Hereward.

"It's a 'Ladies Only' dance, so you can't be invited, my boy! There won't be a solitary masculine individual present--even the gardener will have gone home."

"You bet folks will peep in!"

"No, they won't. The premises are strictly private."

Quenrede was in some respects a clever and ingenious little person. She was not much good at ordinary dressmaking, where fashion must be followed, but she displayed great originality in her construction of Ingred's fancy costume. There were two clean sacks in the house, and she commandeered them. She cut one into a skirt and the other into a jumper, st.i.tched up the sides, and frayed out the bottoms to represent fringes.

Then she took her water-color paints, mixed them with Chinese white to form a strong body color, and painted Indian patterns on both garments.

The head-dress she considered a triumph. She went to a neighboring poultry farm, and boldly begged the tail feathers which had been plucked the day before from some game fowls. These she glued round a cardboard crown, and the effect was magnificent. A dress rehearsal was held, and the family rejoiced over Ingred's most decidedly Wild West appearance.

"You have a pair of real moccasins that Uncle Ernest sent you for bedroom slippers. I'll cut some strips of cloth into fringe for leggings, and you can wear Athelstane's leather belt, and carry an axe for a tomahawk," said Quenrede, surveying her work with critical satisfaction. "Don't forget to paint your face!"

"I shan't show anyone my costume beforehand," chuckled Ingred. "I really don't believe anyone will know me! What luck if I won a prize for the best disguise!"

"Bet you anything you like you don't!" murmured Hereward.

"Why shouldn't I?"

"Because there may be others even better!"

"Well, of course, that's for Miss Burd to judge! But I think I've a sporting chance, at any rate!"

The dance was to be held on Monday evening after supper, when it was just beginning to grow dusk. The mistresses had taken the matter up quite enthusiastically, and had stretched some wires across the garden, and hung up Chinese lanterns. The hostel piano had been pulled close to the window, so that the strains of music could float out into the garden. At least fifteen seniors had accepted the invitation, and it was rumored that Miss Burd had invited a few private friends. Supper was held earlier than usual, so as to allow time for the all-important operation of dressing, and the moment it was finished every inmate of the hostel fled to her bedroom. Dormitory 2 was naturally a scene of much confusion. The girls tried to put on their own costumes and help each other at the same time. Fil, as a Dresden China Shepherdess, needed much a.s.sistance in the settling of her panniers, and the arrangement of her curls, which by special permission from Mrs. Best had been twisted up in curl papers from four o'clock until the last available moment, and came out, much to Fil's satisfaction, in quite creditable ringlets. The effect was so altogether charming that her room-mates called a general halt for admiration.

"You look like a mixture of Dolly Varden and Sweet Lavender, with a dash of Maid Marian thrown in," decided Verity.

"I hope my hair'll keep in curl! There's rather a damp feeling in the air," fluttered Fil anxiously.

"You could fly indoors, and give it a twist with the tongs, if it gets very limp," suggested Nora.

Nora herself was going as a personification of "The Kitchen." Her skirt was draped with dusters and dish-cloths, she wore a small dish-cover as a hat, clothes-pegs were suspended round her neck as a necklace, and she brandished a rolling-pin in her hand.

"I'm bound to be something comic," she a.s.sured the others. "I'd never keep my face straight for a romantic character. I could no more live up to Lady Jane Grey than I could fly! She's above me altogether!"

Verity, who had borrowed a Dutch costume slightly too small for her, was trying to squeeze her proportions into the tight velvet bodice, and looked dubiously at the sabots.