She rose up with a little brown, crooked stick in one hand, to speak to Miss Pennington.

“Don’t mind me,” said the lady.  “Go on, please, ‘biggin’ your castle.’  That will be a pretty sight to see, when it lights up.”

Ruth liked crooked sticks; they held fast by each other, and they made pretty curves and openings.  So she went on, laying them deftly.

“I should like to be here to-night,” said Miss Elizabeth, still looking at the fire-pile.  “Would you let an old maid in?”

“Miss Pennington!  Would you come?”

“I took it in my head to want to.  That was why I came over.  Are you going to play snap-dragon?  I wondered if you had thought of that.”

“We don’t know about it,” said Ruth.  “Anything, that is, except the name.”

“That is just what I thought possible.  Nobody knows those old games nowadays.  May I come and bring a great dragon-bowl with me, and superintend that part?  Mother got her fate out of a snap-dragon, and we have the identical bowl.  We always used to bring it out at Christmas, when we were all at home.”

“O Miss Pennington!  How perfectly lovely!  How good you are!”

“Well, I’m glad you take it so.  I was afraid it was terribly meddlesome.  But the fancy—­or the memory—­seized me.”

How wonderfully our Halloween party was turning out!

And the turning-out is almost the best part of anything; the time when things are getting together, in the beautiful prosperous way they will take, now and then, even in this vexed world.

There was our lovely little supper-table all ready.  People who have servants enough, high-trained, to do these things while they are entertaining in the drawing-room, don’t have half the pleasure, after all, that we do, in setting out hours beforehand, and putting the last touches and taking the final satisfaction before we go to dress.

The cake, with the ring in it, was in the middle; for we had put together all the fateful and pretty customs we could think of, from whatever holiday; there were mother’s Italian creams, and amber and garnet wine jellies; there were sponge and lady-cake, and the little macaroons and cocoas that Barbara had the secret of; and the salad, of spring chickens and our own splendid celery, was ready in the cold room, with its bowl of delicious dressing to be poured over it at the last; and the scalloped oysters were in the pantry; Ruth was to put them into the oven again when the time came, and mother would pin the white napkins around the dishes, and set them on; and nobody was to worry or get tired with having the whole to think of; and yet the whole would be done, to the very lighting of the candles, which Stephen had spoken for, by this beautiful, organized co-operation of ours.  Truly it is a charming thing,—­all to itself, in a family!