It put an end to the tricks, except the snap-dragon.

We had not thought how late it was; but mother and Ruth had remembered the oysters.

Doctor John Hautayne took Leslie out to supper.  We saw him look at her with a funny, twinkling curiosity, as he stood there with her in the full light; and we all thought we had never seen Leslie look prettier in all her life.

After supper, Miss Pennington lighted up her Dragon, and threw in her snaps.  A very little brandy, and a bowl full of blaze.

Maria Hendee “snapped” first, and got a preserved date.

“Ancient and honorable,” said Miss Pennington, laughing.

Then Pen Pennington tried, and got nothing.

“You thought of your own fingers,” said her aunt.

“A fig for my fortune!” cried Barbara, holding up her trophy.

“It came from the Mediterranean,” said Mrs. Ingleside, over her shoulder into her ear; and the ear burned.

Ruth got a sugared almond.

“Only a kernel,” said the merry doctor’s wife, again.

The doctor himself tried, and seized a slip of candied flag.

“Warm-hearted and useful, that is all,” said Mrs. Ingleside.

“And tolerably pungent,” said the doctor.

Doctor Hautayne drew forth—­angelica.

Most of them were too timid or irresolute to grasp anything.

“That’s the analogy,” said Miss Pennington.  “One must take the risk of getting scorched.  It is ‘the woman who dares,’ after all.”

It was great fun, though.

Mother cut the cake.  That was the last sport of the evening.

If I should tell you who got the ring, you would think it really meant something.  And the year is not out yet, you see.

But there was no doubt of one thing,—­that our Halloween at Westover was a famous little party.

* * * * *

“How do you all feel about it?” asked Barbara, sitting down on the hearth in the brown room, before the embers, and throwing the nuts she had picked up about the carpet into the coals.

We had carried the supper-dishes away into the out-room, and set them on a great spare table that we kept there.  “The room is as good as the girl,” said Barbara.  It is a comfort to put by things, with a clear conscience, to a more rested time.  We should let them be over the Sunday; Monday morning would be all china and soapsuds; then there would be a nice, freshly arrayed dresser, from top to bottom, and we should have had both a party and a piece of fall cleaning.

“How do you feel about it?”

“I feel as if we had had a real own party, ourselves,” said Ruth; “not as if ‘the girls’ had come and had a party here.  There wasn’t anybody to show us how!”

“Except Miss Pennington.  And wasn’t it bewitchinating of her to come?  Nobody can say now—­”

“What do you say it for, then?” interrupted Rosamond.  “It was very nice of Miss Pennington, and kind, considering it was a young party.  Otherwise, why shouldn’t she?”