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THE SECOND DEGREE
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"Go to bed at once," the latter read aloud. There was a gale of laughter. Libbie, the curious, who dearly loved to hear and see, to be sent off to bed in the middle of the most wildly exciting night they had known in weeks!

"Hurry," admonished Bobby. "You're disobeying by staying up this long. Where's your character, Libbie?"

Libbie scowled, but departed, grumbling that she didn't see why she couldn't stay up and watch Norma walk down in the cellar.

"Mine is the most spooky," said Betty, when the door had closed behind Libbie. "Listen—I'm to climb the water tower at midnight and leave this card there to show I have complied."

She held out a little plain white card in a green envelope.

"Hark! was that somebody at the door?" asked Bobby, and she ran over to it lightly and jerked it open.

The corridor was empty.

"We're all nervous," remarked Betty lightly. "I'll set the alarm for eleven-forty-five and put the clock under my pillow so Miss Lacey won't hear it. I'll lie down all dressed, and then I won't have to use a light. She might see that through the transom."

"Don't you want some of us to go with you?" asked Constance. "We needn't go up into the