irls--I'm off."

"Meaning you're crazy?" asked Laura, to which Billie made no reply.

As a matter of fact, even while they were saying they could sleep no more
that night, the girls did go to sleep, and, what is more, slept soundly
until they were awakened by Mrs. Gilligan's voice calling to them from
the connecting doorway.

"Do you expect to sleep all day?" she was asking them, her face rosy and
herself very nice and trim in a light blue house dress. "This is the
third time I've spoken to you, and I was beginning to get worried."

"Wh-what time is it?" demanded Laura sleepily.

"About eleven," Mrs. Gilligan answered calmly, and they gasped.

"Eleven!" repeated Billie, sitting up in bed and rubbing her eyes hard.
"For goodness' sake, how did it get that way? I feel as if I hadn't had
any sleep at all."

"Well, I've had the most awful dreams," complained Violet, turning over
as if she intended to go to sleep again. "I've done nothing but dream of
ghosts and motor cars all night."

At the mention of ghosts Mrs. Gilligan broke into hearty laughter.

"Ghosts?" she said, her eyes sparkling. "I shouldn't think you'd be
talking of ghosts any more. Here you've spent a whole night in the house
and no spirits have bothered you yet. I should think you'd be satisfied."

"Oh, but didn't you hear that noise in the night?" Violet asked her,
turning over and forgetting the nap she had been about to take. "We
girls were just about scared to death."

"Speak for yourself," said Laura, who, whether she had really been
frightened or not, never liked to have anybody tell her about it.

"You were scared too, what's the use of denying it?" Violet demanded
hotly, but Mrs. Gilligan interrupted them.

"Never mind about that," she said, with a smile. "Just tell me about this
noise you thought you heard."

So the girls told her about their weird experience of the night before,
all talking at once and making it as hard as possible for Mrs. Gilligan
to understand what it was all about.

"A noise that sounded like a motor car," she said, when they had finished
and had paused for lack of breath. "Well, I don't see what's so very
queer about that. May have been some joy-riders or something."

"But who would be joy-riding in this part of the country?" Laura
objected. "The country people hereabouts probably don't know what the
word means."

"That particular sport does seem to belong to the idle rich," Mrs.
Gilligan agreed, with a chuc