nurse, for what had
really been their doing, they all agreed to ignore the question of blame
and dwell only on their gladness and happiness at the safety of
everybody concerned.

CHAPTER XII

WHO WAS THE TALL PHANTOM?

"What _is_ a phantom party?" asked Dolly.

"Oh, it's lots of fun," Dotty replied; "everybody is rigged up in
sheets, with a head-thing made of a pillow-case, and a little white mask
over your face, so nobody knows you."

"Can I go?" asked Genie, her black eyes dancing.

"No," said her mother, "you're too young, dearie, this party of Edith
Holmes' is an evening party; it begins at seven o'clock and only the big
girls can go to it."

"Oh, dear, will I ever get grown up!" and Genie sighed with envy of her
sister and Dolly.

"But how do you know who anybody is?" went on Dolly, who had never heard
of this game before.

"You don't! that's the fun of it. You can't tell the girls from the
boys, and you must try to make your voice different, so nobody will know
who you are. Have you plenty of sheets, Mother, to fix us up?"

"Yes, indeed; one apiece will do you I think, if they are wide ones."

"We'll make our own masks," said Dotty, who had attended parties of this
sort before.

So they cut masks from white muslin, with a little frill across the
bottom and holes to fit their eyes.

"Now we must put a piece of gauze or net behind these eye-holes," said
Dotty, out of her full experience, "for if we don't, they'd know your
eyes and mine in a minute, Dollyrinda."

"Then how can we see where we're going?"

"Oh, we can see through the thin stuff easily enough, but our eyes don't
show plainly to other people."

So insets of fine white net were put in the eye-holes and the dainty
white masks were really pretty affairs.

They had made them not exactly alike, lest duplicates should lead to
suspicion of their identity.

When it was time to get ready for the party Mrs. Rose pinned the girls
into their sheet draperies.

"Make us as different as possible, Mother," advised Dotty, "so they'll
never think we're us."

Mrs. Rose pinned Dolly's sheet into the semblance of a Japanese kimono,
while she arranged Dotty's in full folds round the neck and let it hang
in a Mother Hubbard effect.

Dolly's pillow-case headdress was bunched on either side of her head,
like rosettes over her ears, and Dotty's hung in a plain flat fold down
her back like an Italian girl's.

The masks were adjusted and the