e tassel on the
portiere wiggle, so it _must_ have been a mouse."

"Patty, you are the most ridiculous little goose on the face of this
earth! Your imagination is something marvellous! Now I'll inform you
that the reason that tassel moved, was because I threw a match at it.
I aimed for a waste-basket and hit the curtain, but I had no idea that
I should find myself so surprised at the result!"

Patty dimpled and giggled. "It _is_ surprising, isn't it?" she said,
feeling much more light-hearted since her fears were relieved
regarding the mouse. "And I'm not sure it's altogether correct, that
you and I should be down here alone after midnight."

"Fiddlestrings!" exclaimed Philip. "Don't be a silly! And besides, Jim
is about somewhere, and Adele has been bobbing in and out."

"There was no one in the halls when I came down. And I think, Philip,
I'd better go back."

"What did you come down for, anyhow?"

For some unexplained reason, Patty suddenly felt unwilling to tell
what she had come for. Bill's letter was hidden in the folds of her
voluminous blue gown, and she couldn't quite bring herself to tell
Philip that she came down for that.

"Oh, I was wakeful," she said, "and I came down to get a--a book."

"H'm; and you thought you'd take a volume of the Britannica back with
you, to read yourself to sleep?"

Patty had to laugh at this, for in the corner where they were, the
shelves contained nothing but cyclopaedias and dictionaries.

"But they're really very interesting reading," she declared.

"And this is the little girl who was so sleepy she had to run off to
bed as soon as the party was over! Patty, Patty, I'm afraid you're not
telling me the truth! Try again."

"Well, then,--well, then, I came down because,--because I was hungry!"

"Ah, that's better. Anybody has a right to be hungry, or even afraid
of mice,--but no one has a right to lug a whole cyclopaedia upstairs
to read oneself to sleep."

"I wasn't going to take _all_ the volumes," said Patty, demurely, and
then she jumped down from her perch. "I'll just see which one I do
want," and pretending to read the labels, she deftly slipped her
letter back between the volumes, unseen by Van Reypen.

"You little goose, you," said Philip, laughing. "Stop your nonsense,
and let's go and forage in the dining-room for something to eat. We
might as well have some good food while we're about it."

"But I'm not exactly in proper dinner garb," said Patty, shaki