Four amazed and crestfallen damsels halted and turned back, to find Miss Burd, attired in a white dressing-gown, standing in the moonlight on the grass.
"What is the meaning of this ?" she asked.

"And why aren't you all in bed ?" It is always difficult to give explanations, and (to such a matter-of-fact person as Miss Burd) it seemed particularly silly to have to confess that they had come out ghost-hunting, and had mistaken her for a spirit.

She emptied the vials of her scorn upon their dejected heads.
"Don't let me hear of any more nonsense of this sort!" she finished.

"I should have thought you were too intelligent to believe in such rubbish.
As for leaving your dormitory at this hour, you deserve to be locked in the cycle-shed for the night.

I shall, of course, report you to Mrs.
Best, and none of you will play tennis for a week, as a punishment." Miss Burd, bristling with anger, swept the delinquents before her to the door of the hostel, and watched them flee upstairs, then went to lay the matter before Mrs.Best.
In Dormitory 2, four girls got into bed at topmost speed.
"Of all the ill-luck!" mourned Fil.
"I didn't know Miss Burd prowled about the garden in a dressing-gown," exclaimed Ingred.
"She _did_ look exactly like a ghost!" confirmed Verity.
"Tennis off for a whole week! Blossom will be furious! It's too absolutely grizzly for anything!" groused Nora.