Although midnight is the prescribed time for all ghostly visitants, these wraiths had arranged for a much earlier appearing. It would cost too great an effort to keep awake until that witching hour. It was not more than half-past ten, although the seminary had been in darkness and silence for an hour, when Retta leaned out of her window, dangling an empty shoe-polish bottle on the end of a long string. It swung against Mittie's window just below with three hollow knocks. Ten seconds after by Lucy's watch the knocking was repeated. She could not hear it from her room, but her faith in Retta's punctuality in carrying out her part of the programme made her send a dazzling circle of light from the lantern she was manipulating, to rest on the wall above the foot of Mittie's bed.
Mittie sat up in bed, too startled to utter a sound. The light instantly disappeared and a white-veiled figure took its place. To her horror she could distinctly see the dark wall-paper through its ghostly outlines. She buried her face in the bedclothes with a moan of terror.
[Illustration: "MITTIE SAT UP IN BED, TOO STARTLED TO UTTER A SOUND."]
"What's the matter, Mittie?" asked her roommate, from the opposite bed, who had been aroused by the knocking and the light, but had not opened her eyes until she heard the moan. The sound of a human voice gave Mittie courage to look out again. The apparition was gone.
"Oh," she quavered, "I must have been dreaming. I thought there was a knocking at the window, then there was a blinding light, and the next instant the veiled lady seemed to float across the room at the foot of my bed. I never was so frightened in my life. My tongue is stiff yet, and I am all in a shiver. Oh, it was awful!"
"It must have been the potato salad you ate for supper," answered Sara, drowsily; but as she spoke the three slow knocks sounded again at the window, and she raised herself on her elbow to listen.
"Oo-oo-oh! There it is again!" wailed Mittie, burrowing under the bedclothes again. The hair fairly rose on Sara's head as the outlines of a veiled figure appeared above the foot of Mittie's bed, floating hesitatingly a little space, and then vanished. In a flash Sara had disappeared from view also, and lay almost smothered under the blankets, so rigid with fear that she dared not move a muscle. She held herself motionless until she began to ache. It seemed hours before either one dared look out again, although it was barely five minutes.