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The dropping of the tight-waisted, old-fashioned blue dress for this story-book attire changed the child's appearance so completely that she looked into the mirror half-frightened, feeling that her old self had run away from her. But there were Mrs. Marks and Miss Flora exclaiming "How pretty!" and the Princess clapping her hands and fluttering around her, calling out that she was perfectly lovely, and made the darlingest little Knave of Hearts that ever was seen, and Miss Katherine saying that if she would come over the next day at noon she would take her photograph.
No one had even called her pretty before, and she had never had her picture taken. Her eyes sparkled and her face lighted up as she turned again to the mirror.
"You and Betty come over to-morrow, too," said Miss Katherine to Lloyd, as she buttoned up the blue dress again, so that Magnolia could go back to supper. "I'd like to add Boy Blue and Bo-Peep to my Mother Goose gallery."
It was dark when Lloyd and Magnolia squeezed through the fence again and ran up the stairs to the room. As Lloyd passed the portière at the end of the hall she pushed it aside and drew back the bolt, as she had promised Kitty to do. They had barely time to lay their bundles on Magnolia's bed when the supper-bell rang, and they ran down to the dining-room. Lloyd was all aglow with excitement and pleasure over the success of the last hour's work, but Magnolia had shrunk back into the same timid little creature she was before her transformation. She had put her hair back into the tight little tails again before leaving Clovercroft, so that her disguise would be the more complete when she unloosed it and appeared as the little knave.
Meantime, Allison and Kitty, hurrying home with their guest, had delighted Norah by a demand for early supper. She and Barbry were expecting some friends from Rollington, a little Irish village near the Valley, and would be glad to be through with their work an hour earlier than usual.
"And you needn't light up for us down-stairs, except in the dining-room," said Allison, "for we're going straight to our rooms after supper, and we don't want to be disturbed till to-morrow morning."
"Very well, miss," answered Barbry, who, a middle-aged woman, was the most trustworthy of well-trained maids. Mrs. Walton never felt any hesitancy in leaving the children in her care.
"And oh, Barbry," said Allison, as she turned to leave the room. "To-night is Hallowe'en, and they say the witches are out and ghosts rise out of their graves. What is that tale they tell about a ghost that used to be seen about the seminary grounds?"
"Sure, an' your mother would be afther gettin' angry if I filled your heads with such nonsense. Who said there was ever a ghost at all in the Valley?"
But after much teasing Barbry allowed herself to be persuaded into telling a tale that had been afloat for years, of the little woman in gray who had once owned the land on which the seminary was built. She lived all alone, and was an odd character. Her peculiar mode of living, and the mystery surrounding her death, gave rise to the rumour that her spirit still haunted the seminary grounds. It was said that the little woman never appeared in public without a gray veil, and her wraith was recognized by the long gauzy covering floating loosely back from its face, not gray but white, as more becoming a spirit.
No sooner had Barbry finished her tale than Allison beckoned the girls to follow, and led the way up-stairs to the sewing-room. "I thought at first I'd just put a pillow-case over my head and wrap up in a sheet, but I'm going to make the girls think I'm the real article. How will this do?"
Taking a roll of cotton from one of the shelves, she pinned it over her hair to make a short white wig, powdered her face till it was as white as the cotton, and over it all threw a long piece of tulle, which she brought from a bureau drawer in her room. "Aunt Elise gave it to me last time I was in town," she said. "She had yards and yards of it that had been used some way in decorating with lilies for a luncheon. Wait till I wrap a sheet around me. Now how do I look?"
"Perfectly awful!" exclaimed Kitty, gazing at her in fascinated wonder that flesh and blood could look so truly ghost-like. Katie hid her eyes with a little scream.
"Don't look at me that way," she begged. "If you are this terrifying in daylight to people who know who you are, what will you be at night?"
Well satisfied with the effect she had produced, Allison
folded up the veil, carefully removed the wig, and washed the powder from her face, while Kitty and Katie rummaged in the drawers for some old, long-sleeved gingham aprons that had been discarded long ago. They had decided to go as rag dolls, as that would be the most complete disguise they could think of. Even their hair would be covered, and they would not need to speak.
"It will be terribly hot with all that cotton stuffed about our heads and necks," said Katie. "But we'll look so funny. And we must hold ourselves limp and lean up against things or flop over, just as real rag dolls do."