Laura and Connie and Rose Belser were going to enter the lists with her, but Vi and Nellie Bane decided to try for the highest mark in geometry. “Working for a prize makes the work seem more like a game,” said Connie as she happily looked up her “greatest generals.” “I’m as excited as if I were going to a party.” “Well, you’d better not get too excited,” advised Vi, pulling a lock of her hair absently in order to solve a particularly steep problem in her beloved geometry. “Billie is sure to come off with the essay prize.” “Oh, she is, is she?” spoke up Rose, who had set her heart on the essay prize herself and who could never quite stifle her former jealousy of Billie. “Well, maybe she is, but I’m going to give her a run for her money just the same.” “Good!” cried Billie, looking up from her book and smiling sunnily at Rose. “That’s the kind of game I like to play.” “And how about us?” said Laura, smiling ruefully over at fluffy-haired Connie. “We don’t seem to be in this at all.” Besides their studies, the girls had the Ghost Club to think about and the importance of initiating new members. They had decided upon two of the freshmen for the honor, one, a fair-haired intelligent girl named Ann Fleming and the second a laughing imp of a girl with red hair and red-brown eyes who bore the name of Ada Slope. Both girls stood well in their studies and showed a remarkable popularity among their classmates considering the short time they had been at the Hall. And of course they were overwhelmed with joy when Billie drew them aside one day and ordered them to be in the gymnasium at not later than nine o’clock that night. They were there before nine, shivering in the darkness of the big gymnasium and wishing that this fearful business of being initiated were over and done with. A few minutes later the “ghosts” arrived and put the girls through a series of trials that tested their courage and endurance to the limit. They were made to “walk the plank” blindfolded; they were prepared for “branding with a red-hot poker” and then touched with a lump of ice that made them cry out in imagined pain; they were handed all sorts of slimy things, harmless in themselves but terrifying to the overstrained nerves of the girls. But they came out of the test with flying colors, and the members of the club were well satisfied with their choice. “And now,” said Rose Belser—who was still president of the club—as the handkerchiefs were removed from the eyes of the new members, “we are about to put to the test a new rule suggested by a fellow ghost.” The girls held their breath, for the announcement was a surprise to all but Billie, who had herself made the suggestion.