"Mercy on us!" said the preceptress, laughing. "Amelia will have me start a course in domestic science; and that is not what their parents have sent these girls to my school for."
However, once enlisted in the cause of Nan's banquet in the haunted boathouse, Amelia Boggs became very helpful. It was she who borrowed tablecloths and napkins from the cook for use at the feast. Henry kept the door of the unused part of the boathouse locked, only to be opened when Nan and Bess and Amelia went there to make final preparations for the banquet on the afternoon of the day selected.
They laid the cloths, trimmed and filled the hanging lamp, and laid the fire ready to light. Then the key of the door was entrusted to Walter Mason and he ran around into Freeling port in his motor boat just before supper.
Nan thought Linda Riggs and Cora Courtney had been lingering about the boathouse, listening and peeping; but she did not suspect these girls, disagreeable and objectionable as they were, would be mean enough to tell any teacher about the proposed banquet.
"I suppose they are only wondering if we are to have a finer spread than they will have at their banquet," Nan said to Bess.
"I just hate their snooping around so," grumbled Bess.
Soon after supper Walter telephoned to his sister from their own house that all was well. He had delivered the goods at the boathouse and, with the help of the Masons' gardener, had carried everything into the unused part of the building, as agreed. The key had been left in a secret corner known only to himself and Nan, and--he wished the girls good luck!
Nan and her friends were all excitement that evening. Not much preparation was made for the following day's tasks. Had Mrs. Cupp not been very busy about her own affairs, she would surely have noticed that some of her charges were in a great flutter.
Miss Sadie Vane, Mrs. Cupp's sister, had come to see her on this evening, and in great excitement again. As soon as the matron was relieved of her supper duties she put on her wraps and left for the village with Miss Vane.
This relieved the minds of Nan and Bess not a little. They ran down to the boathouse and found the key. But Bess utterly refused to go in without a light, and without the other girls for company.
"Oh, all right," said Nan. "I guess everything is safe. And all of the girls are so afraid of the place after dark that if they could get in they would not dare."
The evening dragged by. Curfew rang and still Mrs. Cupp did not return.
Heavy-footed Susan went up through the corridors and looked to the lowering of the lights. Then she returned and the older girls were left to themselves--supposedly for the night.
"When the cat's away the mice can play." It was then figures stole out of certain rooms, and along the corridors, and down the stairs. A rear door had been unchained. One by one the softly flitting figures gathered in the back garden.
There was a wan moon to give them light enough to find the way to the foot of the bluff. But it was a ghostly moon, too, and aided objects along the way in casting weird shadows. May Winslow clung close to Nan and Bess. Grace and Lillie made up the rest of the trembling group who looked to Nan for comfort and support. Laura Polk and "Procrastination Boggs" brought up a more or less courageous rear. In between were girls in all stages of excitement, from a state of hysterical fear to equally hysterical laughter.
They came finally to the foot of the long flight of steps and Nan marshalled her forces. "Now, girls, pluck up your spirits. Close ranks!
Forward--march!" she commanded.
"Wha--what's that?" quavered Lillie Nevin.
"Oh! oh!" from Grace.
"Now, you sawneys!" called the red-haired girl from the rear. "Behave!
Don't try to give us all a conniption fit."
"What's that?" demanded one of the other girls.
"Huh! are you seeing things, too?" cried Amelia.
"No. What kind of a fit is a 'conniption'?"
"Don't know," admitted Laura. "But I've heard my grandmother from New England speak familiarly of 'em. What's the matter up front?"
"Oh, Lil and Grace are balking," declared Nan, with disgust. "_Do_ come on, children. I have an electric lamp. We sha'n't be entirely in the dark."
"I--I saw something," quavered the flaxen-haired Lillie.
"Oh!" gasped Bess, more than a little inclined herself to be panic-stricken.
"Do come along!" urged Nan.
"There it is!" squealed Grace, suddenly.
Half the girls thought they saw the black figure dart around the corner of the building; the other half were looking in an entirely different direction at the moment. But all together emitted a chorused:
"Oh!"
"For pity's sake, girls!" gasped Nan. "Don't!"
"It's the ghost! the black ghost!" quavered May Winslow, groveling in the very depths of superstition.
CHAPTER XX
THERE IS A MYSTERY
"It's a black dog!" ejaculated Amelia Boggs. "I reckon there aren't any canine ghosts; are there, Nan?"
The laugh which followed this sally broke the spell of superstition that had clutched some of the girls. Laughter drove away even the fears of May, Lillie and Grace. Bess swallowed hard and laughed, too; but she pinched Nan's arm as she whispered:
"It was that black thing we saw before in the boathouse, Nan."
"All right. Keep it to yourself," urged her chum.
"What are you two whispering about?" complained May. "You didn't get us down here to try to frighten us to death, did you?"
"We're going to give you all a good time, if you'll let us," laughed Nan, cheerfully. "Come on, girls! If we spend so much time outside the boathouse, somebody will be sure to see us."
"And think we're a whole troop of ghosts," chuckled Laura Polk. "Lead on, Macduff!"
"That's not my middle name, but I'll lead," returned Nan promptly, and this time she succeeded in reaching the side door of the boathouse. She drew forth the electric flashlight and pointed it at the lock, so she could see to insert the key.
"Hurry up!" cried Laura, from the rear. "I'm starved to death right now."
"And it's only ten o'clock," somebody else said. "How can that be?"
"I didn't eat any supper," confessed the red-haired girl, unblushingly.
"I knew Nan and Bess would supply something better."
"If it's all here," Nan said, as the door swung open.
"Goodness! don't suggest that any of those goodies have been stolen!"