"When we heard the creaking, I don't believe there was anybody on the stairs.

In these old houses there are always strange noises at night--and they say the stairs here were made more than two hundred years since." The girls looked at each other with a sense of relief--but they waited to hear the opinion of the queen.

Emily, as usual, justified the confidence placed in her.

She discovered an ingenious method of putting Cecilia's suggestion to the test.
"Let's go on talking," she said.

"If Cecilia is right, the teachers are all asleep, and we have nothing to fear from them.