Sally tickled and poked her affectionately; and she tried to tickle Sally, and laughed till she was almost hysterical, and never remembered who she was, or thought of anything outside this little room, but was filled with a sense of the crazy deliciousness of the moment. At last, weak with laughter, she disentangled herself from the still panting and laughing Sally on the floor, and insisted on returning to the business of the distribution. She felt in the mood to be very funny. She jerked herself up and down and all about in a senseless sort of way. "Here, Sally, now stop laughing and let's finish. It was your turn. You'd best take that one; she looks more as if she might be a little girl of yours, her cheeks are so red--red as a great big cabbage!" This remark seemed to Tibbie so inexpressibly humorous that she laughed again till she nearly cried. "Well, it's sure none of 'em has legs to make 'em look like children of yours," retorted Sally; and that seemed a greater joke still. With a foal's action, Tibbie flung out the thin black legs with the awkward boots at the ends of them, and dropped to the floor squirming and laughing. Sally caught her suddenly again, and cast herself backward with her as before, in a gale of mirth. There they were frolicking, when the peal of a bell rang brightly across their giggles. Sally sat up instantly, and all in Mrs. Darling's house was for a long moment still as the very grave, for Sally had instinctively clapped her hand over Jetty's ready muzzle. "Murder!" whispered Sally, solemnly, at last. "What is it?" breathed Tibbie in her ear. "Was it the front door or the back door?" asked Sally. "I dun'no', Sally." Sally had picked herself up, and was stroking down her things. Tibbie stood beside her, looking up in her face, her own a trifle pale. Sally's irresolution lasted only a second. She cast an eye on the dolls, saw that they were very nearly as she had found them, and turned down the light. She looked about Mrs. Darling's room to see that all was as usual, and turned down the lights there too, after glancing at the clock. "It ain't late," she murmured. "It ain't a bit later than I supposed. It can't be her! It might be Mrs. Bonnet, though, getting home before Catherine, who's got the key. I shouldn't want her to catch you here for the whole world. Look here, Tibbie. You stand in here till I find out who it is, and if it's Mrs. Bonnet, you'll have to stay hidden till I find a good chance to come and smuggle you down." Tibbie waited in the farthest corner of the hall closet, holding her breath, conscious of nothing at first but excitement and fear of she did not know quite what. After a little, the thought drifted across her fervent hope for present safety, that though she got well out of this scrape, she would probably never see those radiant dollies again, her own half or Sally's.