"They were all dressed up in their tuxedos and headed for the back road in their old runabout when they drove over the railroad crossing outside of Kingston. There was a girl standing beside the road as though she were hoping to get a ride. She was all dressed up in a pretty white evening dress, but she was alone. So the boys stopped and asked her if she wanted a rise, and she allowed that she did. She got in and they discovered that she was going to the same dance they were headed for. She told them that her name was Eloise, that she lived in Kingston, and that was all they could get out of her. So they rose along until they got to New Paltz where they took her to the dance and then went around to the sorority house and met their own dates.

"About halfway through the dance Bill says, 'Say, Charlie, I just danced with Eloise, that girl we brought over. She's a swell dancer; if you get a chance you'd better dance with her.' So the next time somebody cut in on his partner, Charlie went over to where Eloise was sitting by herself and asked her to dance. She did, and she was wonderfully light on her feet. She didn't talk much, but she was pleasant and nice.

"Well, after the dance the boys took their dates for a ride and then took them home and started out for Kingston. And about a mile out of town there was Eloise, walking toward Kingston ten miles or more away. So they stopped again and she got in beside them, sitting on the outside. It was cold and the girl sat there shivering. So Charlie, who was in the middle, took off his coat and put it around her. She was very grateful to him and very friendly. When they got to Kingston she told them her address and they drove up to a big old house. She got out of the car, thanked them again, ran up the steps. They could see the light turn on for a minute or two and then the house was dark.

"When they'd gone a block they remembered Charlie's coat. At first they thought they'd go back and ask the girl for it right away, but when they thought of waking the whole house up - it was two o'clock by then - they decided to return the next day.

"The next day was Sunday, so along in the afternoon they went to the house and rang the bell. An old woman came to the door and they asked if they could speak to Eloise.

"'Nobody by than name lives here now,' the old lady says.

"'Are you sure?' Bill says. 'Last night at the dance at New Paltz we met a girl named Eloise and we brought her here afterward. Only she had Charlie's coat and she forgot to leave it with him. We just thought we'd pick up the coat, that's all.'

"'It's like I told you, there is no one living here by that name,' she insisted, but she acted nervous about it. The boys had just begun to figure that she was trying to cover up something when Charlie saw a picture on the piano in the room off the hall.

"'That's the girl! That's Eloise! Now listen, lady, we don't want any trouble, but I want my overcoat.' He was getting sore about it.

"The old lady was very sad and very quiet. Finally she said, 'You're right, of course. That is a picture of my daughter Eloise. but you couldn't have met her at any dance on earth last night, because it was five years ago last night that she was killed in a railroad crossing accident. Only, the odd thing about it is that she was on her way to a dance at New Paltz when the accident happened.'

"Well, this didn't make much sense to the boys. They still thought she was lying to them to shield the girl. But when she told them where the girl was buried in the cemetery near where they met Eloise first, they began to think maybe she was telling the truth. At any rate, they decided to go up there and see if that much of the story was true. And I guess they decided she was telling the truth, because they found Eloise's grave, right where her mother said it would be. They found it very easily, in fact, because Charlie's coat was draped over the back of it."