"That one you spoke May Day at Ivy Hall," suggested Mercedes, "when you
tumbled off the platform."

"Tumbled off the platform?" echoed the boys in great surprise. This
was an adventure which had never been recounted to them. "How did she
tumble off the platform? Tell us about it."

Tabitha merely laughed and shook her head, but Mercedes, elated at the
opportunity of singing the praises of her idol, regaled them with a
laughable description of Tabitha's mishap. This led to other boarding
school reminiscences,--the christening of the vessel, when Cassandra
took her memorable plunge into the ocean; the night of the opera and
their experiences with the runaway ostriches; the voice of the
mysterious singer in the bell-tower, which some of the more timid
students had mistaken for a ghost; and finally, the appearance of the
Ivy Hall ghost itself. The McKittrick girls had heard all these events
recounted so often that they knew them almost by heart; but,
nevertheless, they were never tired of listening, and drank in the
stories of all those delightful mishaps with almost as much eagerness
as was displayed by Billiard and Toady, hearing them for the first time.

But all frolics come to an end, and Tabitha at length roused with a
start to announce, "That clock struck ten, I am positive."

"What clock?"

"Yours. The one in the kitchen. We were unusually quiet, I reckon,
for I was able to count ten strokes. We must fly into bed as fast as
we can get there. I had no idea it was so late, although Janie and
Rosslyn have been snoozing for ages. Come on, let's march. See who
can get to the house first."

Away they scampered as hard as they could run down the rough path,
while Tabitha and Glory wrestled with the two little sleepers, trying
to rouse them from their slumber so they might walk down to the cottage
instead of having to be carried. But Rosslyn refused to waken
thoroughly, and created such a scene that it was some minutes before
they could coax him to follow them down the trail. So when they
entered the moonlit kitchen, leading the stumbling boy and carrying
Janie, who could not keep her eyes open or her feet under her, the rest
of the family had vanished completely.

"Can they be in bed already?" asked Tabitha in surprise. "Have we been
wrestling with those children so long?"

Gloriana tiptoed across the floor and opened the door to the room where
the four sisters slept, and disclosed four flushed fa