“But, Ann,” came the voice after a moment’s waiting, “it is nearly sundown, and you ought to go right away, dear.  Lottie says that you have been reading ever since you came home from school, and I am afraid that your mother wouldn’t like it.”

[Illustration:  “SAT PERCHED AMONG ITS GUARDED BRANCHES”]

“Oh, bother!” exclaimed Ann under her breath, shutting the book with an impatient slap; but she obediently swung herself down from the limb, and went into the house for the key.  The little cottage where Ann Fowler lived stood just across the lane from her Uncle John’s big brown house, where she was staying while her mother was away from home.  Mrs. Fowler, who had been called to the city by her sister’s illness, had taken little Betty with her, but Ann could not afford to miss school and had been left in her Aunt Sally’s care.  The arrangement was very agreeable to the child, for it meant no dish-wiping, no dusting, no running of errands while she was a guest.  Her only task was to go across the lane twice a day and feed the chickens.

As Ann came out of the house swinging the key, her aunt called her again:  “Mrs. Grayson was here to-day.  She came to invite you and Lottie to a Saturday afternoon romp with her little girls to-morrow.  She’s asked a dozen boys and girls to come and play all afternoon and stay to tea.  Her oldest daughter, Jennie, is going to give a Hallowe’en party at night, but she’ll send you home in the carryall after tea, before the foolishness begins.”

“Didn’t she invite us to the party too?” asked Ann, who had heard it discussed at school all week by the older girls and boys of the neighbourhood, until her head was full of the charms and mysteries of Hallowe’en.

“Why, of course not,” was the answer.  “Jennie Grayson is fully eighteen years old and wouldn’t want you children tagging around.”

“But we can’t work any charms in the afternoon,” said Ann, “They won’t come true unless you wait till midnight to do ’em.  I found a long list of ’em in an old book at home and gave them to Jennie.  I think she might have asked me.  I’d love to try my fate walking down cellar backwards with a looking-glass in one hand and a candle in the other.  They say that you can see the reflection of the man you’re going to marry looking over your shoulder into the glass.”

“Why, Ann Fowler!” exclaimed her aunt in a horrified tone, lifting up both hands in her astonishment.  “I didn’t think it of a little girl like you!  Don’t you go to putting any foolish notions like that into Lottie’s head.  Fate indeed!  It would be more like your fate to fall down cellar and break the looking-glass and set yourself on fire.  No, indeed!  Lottie shouldn’t go to such a party if she had a dozen invitations.”

Ann hurried away wishing that she had not spoken.  She had an uncomfortable feeling that her aunt considered her almost wicked, because she had made that wish.  As for her aunt, she was saying to her husband, who had just come in, “Well, well! that child has the queerest notions.  Her mother lets her read entirely too much, and anything she happens to get her hands on.  And she sets such store by her clothes, too.  I believe if she had her own way she’d be rigged out in her Sunday best the whole week long.  I’m glad that Lucy isn’t like her.”