Sally tripped up the stairs and Jane was after her.

“Do they really mean to sleep in the recreation room?” asked the freshman, waiting at a landing for Jane.

“Land knows,” replied Jane, “but I thought we had best humor them at least past the pneumonia point.  I am thankful they did not all break away over the campus to some other building.  We will probably shame them into going back to bed when they see how much trouble they are giving.  Where might we find the bed clothes storeroom?”

“Just here to your left.  But wait until I switch that light.”  She reached a button and gave the side light its current.  Then she stepped back to Jane.

“Miss Allen,” she began in more subdued voice, “I just wanted to tell you it was I who rang—­the fire bell!”

“Oh, did you?” said Jane lightly, following the hushed tone of voice, “but where did you think the fire was?”

“I knew there was no fire,” she confessed, “but I had to do it to cover those other noises.”

Jane was mystified, but she realized by Sarah’s manner that a complete explanation was not possible just then.  Here and there a step or a voice threatened the snatched confidence.

“Did you hear that scream?” whispered Jane.

“Yes, and I—­had my room changed to over at the foot of the attic stairs just yesterday, but—­but—­oh, Miss Allen, it is too dreadful!” she gasped, dropping into a window seat and bursting into tears.

“Don’t, dear!  Don’t, Sally!” begged Jane.  “You are all unnerved.  Tomorrow you can tell me your fears, if you wish,” Jane qualified.  “But now let us get back to the girls.  They will think something dreadful has happened to us.”

“But I can’t tell you, Miss Allen.  If I did I should have to leave dear old Wellington and this—­opportunity means so much to me,” and again she sobbed convulsively, while Jane put an affectionate arm around the little stranger.

Clapping of hands and calling out foolish warnings from below checked Jane’s flow of sympathy, and presently she stumbled back to the recreation room propelling a mountain of blankets and comfortables.

“There.  Just see what you have done,” she charged the students who were instantly struggling for the blankets to the extent of practically disrobing the accommodating Jane.  “Leave me my blouse, please do.  It’s the only real Jersey I possess.  But aren’t you ashamed to treat juniors this way?”

“Dreadfully!” drawled a girl already rolled like a cocoon in a pretty blue “wooley” and coiling up on a rug in the farthest corner.  “Jane Alien, you’re a perfect lamb, and I hope you’ll stay with us forever.”

“I am sure I have a congestive chill,” chattered a fraud of a girl who almost upset Jane in the blanket rush.  “Give me the pink one.  It’s my color,” and another tug freed “the pink one” from its company of neatly folded coverlets.

“It is a shame,” confessed someone else.  “Come on upstairs, girls.  Let’s defy the ghosts.  I have always heard they shun a crowd.  Where’s the crowd?  Let’s make them shun us.”