“They are not love-letters, deary, but notes from my mates after I left Miss Cotton’s boarding school. I don’t think there is any story about them,” and grandma turned them over with spectacles before the dim eyes, so young and bright when they first read the very same notes.

Fanny was about to say, “I’ll choose again,” when grandma began to laugh so heartily that the girls felt sure she had caught some merry old memory which would amuse them.

“Bless my heart, I haven’t thought of that frolic this forty years. Poor, dear, giddy Sally Pomroy, and she’s a great-grandmother now!” cried the old lady, after reading one of the notes, and clearing the mist off her glasses.

“Now please tell about her; I know it’s something funny to make you laugh so,” said Polly and Fan together.

“Well, it was droll, and I’m glad I remembered it, for it’s just the story to tell you young things.

“It was years ago,” began grandma, briskly, “and teachers were very much stricter than they are now. The girls at Miss Cotton’s were not allowed lights in their rooms after nine o’clock, never went out alone, and were expected to behave like models of propriety from morning till night.

“As you may imagine, ten young girls, full of spirits and fun, found these rules hard to keep, and made up for good behaviour in public by all sorts of frolics in private.

“Miss Cotton and her brother sat in the back parlour after school was over, and the young ladies were sent to bed. Mr. John was very deaf, and Miss Priscilla very near-sighted,—two convenient afflictions for the girls on some occasions, but once they proved quite the reverse, as you shall hear.

“We had been very prim for a week, and our bottled-up spirits could no longer be contained; so we planned a revel after our own hearts, and set our wits to work to execute it.

“The first obstacle was surmounted in this way: As none of us could get out alone, we resolved to lower Sally from the window, for she was light and small, and very smart.

“With our combined pocket money she was to buy nuts and candy, cake and fruit pie, and a candle, so that we might have a light, after Betsey took ours away as usual.

“We were to darken the window of the inner chamber, set a watch in the little entry, light up, and then for a good time.

“At eight o’clock on the appointed evening, several of us professed great weariness, and went to our room, leaving the rest sewing virtuously with Miss Cotton, who read Hannah More’s Sacred Dramas aloud, in a way that fitted the listeners for bed as well as a dose of opium would have done.

“I am sorry to say I was one of the ringleaders; and as soon as we got upstairs, produced the rope provided for the purpose, and invited Sally to be lowered. It was an old-fashioned house, sloping down behind, and the closet window chosen by us was not many feet from the ground.

“It was a summer evening, so that at eight o’clock it was still light; but we were not afraid of being seen, for the street was a lonely one, and our only neighbours two old ladies, who put down their curtains at sunset, and never looked out till morning.

“Sally had been bribed by promises of as many ‘goodies’ as she could eat, and being a regular madcap, she was ready for anything.

“Tying the rope round her waist she crept out, and we let her safely down, sent a big basket after her, and saw her slip round the corner in my big sun-bonnet and another girl’s shawl, so that she should not be recognized.