and look at the entry clock; you're on the front side."

Poor Joy jumped out shivering into the cold again, opened the door
softly, and ran out. She came back in somewhat of a hurry, and shut the
door with a bang.

"Gypsy Breynton!"

"What?"

"If I _ever_ forgive you!"

"What is the matter?"

"It's _just twenty-five minutes past eleven_!"

[Illustration]

Gypsy broke into a ringing laugh. Joy could never bear to be laughed at.

"_I_ don't see anything so terrible funny, and I guess you wouldn't if
you'd made that old--"

"Fire; I know it. Just to think!--and you shivering and blowing away at
it. I never heard anything so funny!"

"I think it was real mean in you to wake me up, any way."

"Why, I thought I heard it strike six as much as could be. Oh, dear, oh,
dear!"

Joy couldn't see the joke. But the story of that memorable night was not
yet finished.

The faint, gray morning really came at last, and the girls awoke in good
earnest, ready and glad to get up.

"I feel as if I'd been pulled through a knothole," said Joy.

"I slept with one eye open all the time I did sleep," said Gypsy,
drearily. "I know one thing. I'll never try to lie awake as long as I
live."

"Not when you have a lover go to Europe?"

"Not if I have a dozen lovers go to Europe. How is that fire going to be
built, I'd like to know?--every stick of wood burned out last night."

There was no way but to go down into the wood-shed and get some. It was
yet early, and quite dark.

"Go the back stairs," said Gypsy, "so's not to wake people up."

Joy opened the door, and jumped, with a scream that echoed through the
silent entry.

"Hush-sh! What is the matter?"

"A--a--it's a _ghost_!"

"A ghost! Nonsense!"

Gypsy pushed by trembling Joy and ran out. She, too, came back with a
jump, and, though she did not scream, she did not say nonsense.

"What _can_ it be?"

It certainly did look amazingly like a ghost. Something tall and white
and ghastly, with awful arm extended. The entry was very dark.

Joy sprang into bed and covered up her face in the clothes. Gypsy stood
still and winked fast for about a minute. Then Joy heard a fall and a
bubbling laugh.

"That old Tom! It's nothing but a broom-handle and a sheet. Oh, Joy,
just come and see!"

After that, Joy declared she wouldn't go to the wood-shed alone, if she
dressed without a fire the rest of her life. So Gypsy started with her,
and they crept downstairs on tiptoe, h