“I’ll tell you when it comes,” answered Linnet, seriously.

With an intent face, and slow, careful fingers, Marjorie peeled the handsome apple without breaking the coils of the skin, then poised her hand and gave the shining, green rings a toss over her shoulder to the oilcloth.

“S!  S! Oh! what a handsome S!” screamed Linnet.

“Well, what does it mean?” inquired Marjorie, interestedly.

“Oh, nothing, only you will marry a man whose name begins with S,” said Linnet, seriously.

“I don’t believe I will!” returned Marjorie, contentedly.  “Do you believe I will, mother?”

Mrs. West was lifting a deliciously browned pumpkin pie from the oven, she set it carefully on the table beside Marjorie’s yellow dish of quartered apples and then turned to the oven for its mate.

“Now cut one for me,” urged Linnet gleefully.

“But I don’t believe it,” persisted Marjorie, picking among the apples in the basket at her feet; “you don’t believe it yourself.”

“I never knew it to come true,” admitted Linnet, sagely, “but S is a common letter.  There are more Smiths in the world than any one else.  A woman went to an auction and bought a brass door plate with Smith on it because she had six daughters and was sure one of them would marry a Smith.”

“And did one?” asked Maijorie, in her innocent voice.  Linnet was sure her lungs were made of leather else she would have burst them every day laughing at foolish little Marjorie.

“The story ended there,” said Linnet.

“Stories always leave off at interesting places,” said Marjorie, guarding Linnet’s future with slow-moving fingers.  “I hope mine won’t.”

“It will if you die in the middle of it,” returned Linnet

Linnet was washing the baking dishes at the sink.

“No, it wouldn’t, it would go on and be more interesting,” said Marjorie, in her decided way; “but I do want to finish it all.”

“Be careful, don’t break mine,” continued Linnet, as Marjorie gave the apple rings a toss.  “There! you have!” she cried disappointedly.  “You’ve spoiled my fortune, Marjie.”

“Linnet!  Linnet!” rebuked her mother, shutting the oven door, “I thought you were only playing.  I wouldn’t have let you go on if I had thought you would have taken it in earnest.”

“I don’t really,” returned Linnet, with a vexed laugh, “but I did want to see what letter it would be.”

“It’s O,” said Marjorie, turning to look over her shoulder.

“Rather a crooked one,” conceded Linnet, “but it will have to do.”

“Suppose you try a dozen times and they all come different,” suggested practical Marjorie.

“That proves it’s all nonsense,” answered her mother.

“And suppose you don’t marry anybody,” Marjorie continued, spoiling Linnet’s romance, “some letter, or something like a letter has to come, and then what of it?”