When Annie Pridwell led the way, it followed of necessity that the others went after her, so they scurried to catch her up, and all ran in a body over the bridge and into the nettle-grown garden. Gerda was still perched on the window-sill of one of the lower rooms, and she turned to her schoolfellows with a strange light in her eyes and a look of unwonted excitement on her face.

"I put my hand through the broken pane and pulled back the catch," she volunteered. "We've only to push the window up and we could go inside."

"Oh! Dare we?"

"Suppose the ghost caught us?"

"Oh, I say! Do let us go!"

"It would be such gorgeous sport!"

"I'm game, if you all are."

[60] As usual it was Annie Pridwell who led the adventure. Pushing up the window, she climbed over the sill and dropped inside, then turning round offered a hand to Gerda, who sprang eagerly after her. It was imperative for Deirdre, Dulcie, Betty, and Barbara to follow; they were not going to be outdone in courage, and they felt that at any rate there was safety in numbers. There was nothing very terrible about the dining-room, in which they found themselves, it only looked miserable and forlorn, with the damp paper hanging in strips from the walls, and heaps of straw left by the remover's men strewn about the floor.

[60]

"We'll go and explore the rest of the house," said Annie, with a half-nervous chuckle. "Come along, anybody who's game!"

Nobody wished to remain behind alone, so they went all together, holding each other's arms, squealing, or gasping, or giggling, as occasion prompted. They peeped into the empty drawing-room and the silent kitchen, where the grate was red with rust; hurried past a dark hall cupboard, and found themselves at the foot of the staircase.

"Oh, I daren't go up; I simply daren't!" bleated Barbara piteously.

"Suppose the ghost lives up there?" suggested Betty.

"My good girl, no self-respecting spook likes to make an exhibition of itself," returned Annie. "The sight of six of us would scare it away. I don't mean to say I'd go alone, but now we're all here it's different."

[61] "We've been more than Miss Harding's 

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