“Honestly, girls, I was so frightened for a minute that I was _weak_, and couldn’t take to my heels as I wanted to! But I saw that he was young and nice looking and well dressed,—and he called, not very loud, ‘Is that you, Louise?’ “‘No,’ I said, ‘it is not.’ “‘O,’ he said and seemed to be disappointed, so I knew he didn’t have any designs on me. Then he told me that he had expected to meet his sister down on the beach, that he came in a motor boat and had something important for her, but came earlier than he had planned and so walked up hoping to meet her. He looked around sort of uncomfortably and said he didn’t see how he could wait and something about how silly they were here about hours and rules. I suppose he thought I was a rule-breaker too, and would sympathize. “Then he asked if I would do him a favor: ‘If I run down to the boat and get the package—it isn’t a large one—would you give it to my sister?’ “‘I don’t know who your sister is,’ I said. “‘It’s addressed,’ he said and hurried off without waiting for me to say I would or wouldn’t, just took it for granted that I would! “So I waited again—_hours_—and thought I never would get to the party. Finally he came back and apologized for keeping me waiting, said he’d mislaid a letter and gave me a big packet,—looked like letters and papers all tied up. ‘Of course you’ll not mention this,’ he said, and gave me such a look! He ‘had me in his power,’ as the stories say, so I said ‘naturally not’ in a high and mighty way and walked off. By this time I knew that somebody had played a joke on me and Eloise had never been at the janitor’s at all!” “Did you deliver the packet?” “Yes; I wish I had waited and given it to Miss Randolph first, but my smart thoughts always come a week or so too late! The package was addressed to Miss Louise Holle, spelled ‘le’ instead of ‘ley’ as I had supposed. When I rapped on her door there was no answer, so I tried it, found it unlocked and decided to open it and leave the packet there. I just put it on a chair that I saw near the door. The moonlight shone in on her bed and it was empty. I suppose she had gone out to meet him, maybe to the beach. I heard a motor boat chugging away as I came through the halls.” “She must have had a nice wait if she missed him,” said Hilary. “Mercy, Betty,” exclaimed Cathalina, “it might have been somebody to kidnap you, as you say. Where in the world was the night watchman?” “O, smoking behind some tree, or asleep on the porch, I suppose,” replied Betty, forgetting that she had done her best to keep out of sight, while the prowling visitor had doubtless done the same. Eloise then told of the ghost who had come without the “skull and crossbones pass”, and of the one that left shortly before Betty arrived. “I thought it was the same one coming back, you know. And when we all unmasked, _everybody I had invited was there_. So somebody planned to get Betty out of the way and come herself. Now do you suppose it was Louise?”