With a bound she reached the drive, closely followed by the other girls.  The ghostly three evidently considering discretion the better part of valor, left the drive and took to their heels across the lawn.  But Grace, who was well in the lead, caught the last fleeing ghost by its robe and held on for dear life.  There was a sound of rending cloth as the apparition bounded forward, then it caught its spectre toe on a tuft of long grass and fell forward with a decidedly human thud.

The girls surrounded it in an instant.  Before it had time to rise, Grace snatched off a white mask smeared around the eye-holes with phosphorus, which explained the flamelike effect, and disclosed the sheepish face of James Gardiner, one of the sophomore class.

“Oh, let a fellow up, will you?” he said, with a sickly grin.

“You bad boy!” exclaimed Grace.  “What do you mean by dressing up like this?  Don’t you know you might frighten some timid person terribly?”

“Initiation,” said the youth, with a grin, rising on his elbow and looking as though he would like to make a sudden break for liberty.  “Part of the sacred obligations of the ‘Knights and Squires’ frat.  Three fellows of us were initiated to-night.  This was the last stunt.”

“Well, I suppose under those circumstances we shall have to forgive you.  Did you appear to any one else?” asked Grace.

“Only to that old crank Miss Brant.  She was scared out of her wits,” replied James, laughing.  “Two of your crowd got out in a hurry, too, didn’t they?”

“I suppose I shall have to confess that they did,” replied Grace.  “If I were you, James, I’d take off that costume and hurry away.  Miss Brant is liable to inform the police, and they might not look at initiation stunts as we do.”

“That’s right,” said James, looking a trifle alarmed.  “Wonder where the fellows went.  I’d better put them on.  We never thought of that.  If you girls will excuse me, I’ll hunt them up.”

“Certainly,” said the girls.  “Good night, James.”

“Good night,” replied the youth.  “You girls are all right.  Can’t scare you.”  With a nod to them he started across the grass on the run, his ghostly garments trailing behind him.

“I’m glad that wasn’t David,” said Anne as James disappeared.  “I was afraid when first I saw them that they might be our boys.  I didn’t feel frightened at all, after what Grace had said about meeting David.”

“Eva and Marian didn’t show any great amount of courage,” said Nora, laughing.  “I wonder if they ran all the way home.”

“There they are ahead of us,” said Anne.

True enough, the two girls stood on the corner waiting for the others to come up.

“Why don’t you hurry on home?” called Nora. “’The goblins will git you, ef you don’t watch out.’”

“Don’t tease,” said Marian Barber, looking rather foolish.  “We are awfully sorry we ran away, but when I saw those awful white figures coming toward us, I just had to run and so did Eva.  Who on earth were they, and where did they go?”