"My dear child, so much has happened since then and I'm so weary, I don't think I can make it the frightful tale I had intended."

"Oh, it was all a joke?" asked Judy, whose enthusiasm had about spent itself in other outlets.

"Oh, partly a joke. I went down to the cloisters to leave a Christmas note for Professor Green at his office and saw a ghostly looking figure there."

"Is that all? Well, anybody might look like a phantom in that gloomy place. I've no doubt the ghostly figure took you for another."

"I've no doubt it did," answered Molly, laughing, and with that they kissed and went to bed.

Long after midnight Molly rose and slipped on her dressing-gown.

Creeping out of her room, she flitted along the corridor, turned the corner and hurried up the other side of the Quadrangle. At the very end of this hall was a narrow pa.s.sage with a window which commanded a view of the courtyard and the windows of the cloister studies.

Softly raising the blind, she looked out. In one of the studies a dim light was burning. She counted windows. It was Professor Green's office, she was certain. While she looked the light went out.

Back to her bed she flew with a feeling that somebody was chasing her.

"There's one thing certain," she thought, drawing the covers over her head, "ghosts never need lights."

CHAPTER XVI.

MORE CHRISTMAS PRESENTS AND A COASTING PARTY OF TWO.

All the bells in Wellington were ringing when the girls awoke Christmas morning. The sweet-toned bell of the Chapel of St. Francis mingled its notes with the persistent appeal of the Roman Catholic bell across the way, while on the next street the bell of the Presbyterian Church sent out a calm doctrinal call for all repentant sinners to be on hand sharp for the ten o'clock service. And in this confusion of sound came the tinkle of sleigh bells like a note of pleasure in a religious symphony.

"Merry Christmas!" cried Judy, running into the room with an armful of parcels done up with white tissue paper and tied with red ribbons. "Here are the presents Nance and the others left for you. 'My lady fair, arise, arise, arise!'"

"Merry Christmas!" cried Molly, bounding out of bed and rushing to find the presents she had been commissioned to take care of for Judy.

The two girls climbed under the covers and began to open their gifts.

"Dear old Nance!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Judy. "How well she knows my wants. She's given me an address book because she disapproved of my keeping addresses on old envelopes."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "AND SHE'S GIVEN ME A PAIR OF SILK STOCKINGS," CRIED MOLLY.--_Page 213._]

"And she's given me a pair of silk stockings," cried Molly, "because she knows my luxurious tastes run to such things."

"Edith Williams is the cla.s.s joker," remarked Judy, laughing. "She's sent me a novel by Black and she's written on the fly leaf, 'For the first six months the Merry Widow read only novels by Black.'"

"Weren't they dears?" broke in Molly. "They knew we'd be lonely and they wanted to make us laugh Christmas morning. Look what Edith sent me."

It was a small round basket of sweet gra.s.s, no doubt purchased at the village store, and inside on pink cotton was a pasteboard medal. Printed around the outer edge of the medal was the following announcement: "Awarded to Pallas Athene Brown for the Best General Average in Good Manners and Amiability by the Wellington High School."

There was a hole punched in one end of the medal with a blue ribbon run through it. On one of Edith's cards in the box was written:

"To be worn on great occasions."

The two girls received other amusing presents. If their friends had hoped to cheer them on their lonely Christmas morning, they had succeeded wonderfully well. Judy especially was in the wildest spirits.

It was a custom of hers to describe her feelings exactly as a chronic invalid recounts his sensations.

"I'm all aglow with good cheer. I could dance and sing. It must be a sort of Christmas spirit in the air. I do adore to get presents. I think I have more curiosity in my nature than you, Molly. Why don't you open the rest of yours?"

Molly was lost in admiration of a beautiful little copy of Maeterlinck's "_Pelleas et Melisande_" sent to her by Mary Stewart.

"Because I like to eat my cake slowly," she answered, "and get all the fine flavor without choking myself to death. Oh," she cried, taking the tissue paper off a small parcel, "how lovely of your mother, Judy, to send me this beautiful lace collar!"

"It's just like the one she sent me," answered Judy, as pleased as a child over Molly's enthusiasm. "But do look in the other boxes. What's that square thing? If it were mine, I should be palpitating with curiosity."

If Judy had guessed what the square box contained, she would not have been so eager to precipitate an embarra.s.sing situation.

"Very well, Mistress Judy, we'll find out immediately what's inside.

Where did it come from, anyway?"

"There's not the slightest inkling of who sent it," answered Judy, examining the address printed in a sort of script. "Whoever sent it knew how to do lettering, certainly. But the postmark is smeared."

Molly cut the string and removed the brown paper wrapping. The article inside the box was folded in a quant.i.ty of tissue paper.

"It has as many coverings as a royal Egyptian mummy," exclaimed Judy impatiently.

It had indeed. After stripping off several layers of paper it was necessary to cut another string before the rest of the paper could be removed.

At last, however, another china Martin Luther emerged from his tissue paper sh.e.l.l. The two girls gasped with surprise and consternation.

"Will wonders never cease?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Molly.

"I'm sure it's just another joke the girls are playing on us," broke in Judy with some excitement. "Here's a card. What does it say?"

On a pasteboard card, written in the same script as the address, was the following mystifying message:

"Was it kind to put such temptation in the way of the weak?"

"What does it mean, Judy?" asked Molly. "I seem to be groping in the dark."

Judy shook her head.

"You can search me," she said expressively. "Why don't you break a hole in him and see?"

"No sooner said than done," answered Molly. "But I really feel like a butcher. This is the third time I've destroyed a pig."

She cracked the bank on the head of her little iron bed, but only a silver quarter rolled out on the floor. The rest of the money was in bills, three five dollar bills, which had been compactly folded and pushed through the slit in the pig's back.

"Fifteen dollars and a quarter!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Molly. "That was just about what the original sum was, but I suppose in silver it was too heavy to come through the mails."

She lay back on her pillows, her brows wrinkled into a puzzled frown.

"It's a curious performance," she said, after a brief silence. "I don't understand."