Part 4

Elaine, coming in alone, and holding her head very high, distinguished herself by not screaming when the clammy hand touched hers, though she jumped, without any question. There was an unearthly chill about that hand, which, coupled with the sepulchral white garments and the dark eyes showing through holes edged with red, produced a singular shivery feeling along Elaine’s spine.

"It’s Dick, I guess," said the girl who had entered just ahead of Elaine, plunging into conversation without waiting for an introduction. "He’s got on gloves, wet chamois-skin gloves, but who would imagine that it would feel so ghastly? Don’t you love to have your blood run cold?" Fortunately Elaine was spared the necessity of answering that question by encountering Peggy, who gave both arrivals a rapturous squeeze and bore them off to her room to remove their wraps.

The Raymond living-room had been transformed in honor of Peggy’s party. Jack-o’-lanterns grinned from the mantel and the book-cases. A tub of water, Elaine noticed with disapproval, occupied the centre of the room. Hung over the grate was an old iron kettle, in whose depths something silvery bubbled responsive to the heat below. The chairs set back against the wall were filled with laughing girls; for, in spite of Peggy’s repeated warnings that Elaine was not to be late, she was the last arrival.

"We’ll start with the lead, that’s boiling so nicely, and perhaps lead boils away, just as water does." Peggy brought out a long-handled tin spoon, and a basin filled with water. "Come, Ruth," she commanded.

"O, let somebody else take her turn first," pleaded Ruth, but half a dozen hands pushed her forward. Cautiously she ladled a little of the melted lead into the water. Hissing it fell to the bottom of the basin, taking shape as it cooled. The girls crowded about to read the augury.

"Ruth!" Peggy’s voice was preternaturally solemn. "It’s awful, but it looks to me like three balls. Do you suppose you are going to marry a pawn-broker?"

"O, horrors!" cried Ruth, aghast. Milly Weston patted her shoulder comfortingly.

"Don’t you believe it. I can see leaves and branches, too. Those three balls are fruit; oranges probably. That means you’re going to have an orange ranch in California or Florida, and make lots of money."

The rest of the fortune telling proved equally cheerful. The fantastic shapes assumed by the lead in cooling could be interpreted in a variety of ways. While Priscilla insisted that fate had moulded the lead she let fall into the shape of the horn of plenty, which, of course, would signify prosperity, Peggy was positive that the lead had taken the form of a ship, and signified a voyage, while some of the girls saw a fish in the curved shape, and advanced ingenious theories as to its meaning.

There was no disagreement as to Elaine’s fortune. The lead took the form of a violin, and Peggy triumphantly prophesied that her new friend would make a success in music. Elaine smiled with a sense of superiority, as one who has outgrown childish things, but she could not help being glad of the violin, in place of the rolling-pin Peggy had claimed for herself, and which she considered argued skill in the domestic arts. Though Elaine was trying hard to put Peggy’s lessons into execution she had not got beyond the point of regarding housework as drudgery.

By the time the supply of lead was exhausted the company was ready for something else. Into the tub filled with water Peggy dropped three apples, which bobbed against one another sociably and then went sailing off in different directions.

"O, dear me, Peggy," Amy cried reproachfully, "I’ve got the loveliest wave in my hair, and it would have lasted a week if it wasn’t for you. I always get down to the bottom of the tub when I bob for apples and look like a wet kitten for the rest of the evening."

"I’ve had pity on your hair, honey," Peggy laughed, with an approving pat of Amy’s fair locks. "It looks much too nice to spoil." She brought a bow and arrow from the adjoining room. "Instead of bobbing for apples," she explained, "you try to hit them with the arrow. The yellow apple stands for wealth, the red one for health, and the green for happiness. See! Dick fixed something sharp in the end of the arrow so it would stick."

The girls gathered around to admire, then drew off, while Amy made her first attempt in archery. The cord twanged as the arrow sped on its way. There was a shriek from the girls on Amy’s right.

"Oh! Oh!" screamed Blanche Estabrook cowering and clutching frantically at the girl who stood next her. "She’s hit me."

It was only too true, and considerable argument was needed to convince Blanche that the injury was not serious. As a matter of fact, the arrow had pierced the bow of blue ribbon surmounting her knot of yellow curls, and hung dangling. What with the agonized exclamations of Amy, horrified over the thought of what might have happened, and the chatter of the other girls, trying to explain to Blanche that she couldn’t possibly be hurt, Peggy had some difficulty in restoring order.

"The trouble was just here, Amy," she explained to her friend. "You took aim as carefully as could be, and then, just at the last, you shut your eyes. Now, it stands to reason you can’t hit a mark with your eyes shut."

"You can hit a mark," corrected Priscilla, "but not the right one."

Poor Amy submitted to her friend’s mild reproof without attempting to defend herself, and withdrew to the corner in a very subdued mood. The following archers were more successful. Many times, it is true, the arrow fell splashing into the water, or stuck quivering in the sides of the tub, but, occasionally, it pierced one of the three lucky targets, and on such occasions the whole company shouted joyfully. Elaine was one of the fortunate archers. When her arrow pierced the apple which stood for happiness her lips curled a trifle; yet down in her heart she was conscious of an inconsistent wish that the green apple might be a true prophet. Happiness! With a little ungirlish sigh Elaine wondered if she was to find it on Friendly Terrace.

It was Amy’s unlucky night. A little later, twelve colored candles, each standing upright in its own tiny candle-stick, were ranged the length of the long hall, at intervals of two or three feet, burning away like so many miniature light-houses. "These stand for the months," explained Peggy; "the first one is November, and then December, and so on around the year. If you jump over them without putting them out, you’ll have good luck all the year."

"And if you put them out?" inquired Amy anxiously.

"Every candle that goes out means bad luck for that particular month. Come, Priscilla. You try it first."

In spite of her height, Priscilla was as light on her feet as a fairy. Drawing her skirts around her, she went hopping down the hall so lightly that she left the whole twelve candles burning behind her. The applause this feat called forth was less enthusiastic than it would have been a little later, when the other girls had learned by experience the difficulties in the way of duplicating Priscilla’s performance.

While Blanche was lamenting over the fact that the three candles which stood for the summer months had been extinguished, which she interpreted to mean that she was to be disappointed in certain cherished vacation plans, Amy came forward to try her fate. Clutching her skirts frantically, she jumped over the first candle, coming down with a thump which fairly shook the house, while the cheery little flame which stood for November blinked in astonishment and promptly went out. Ten times did Amy repeat this feat. When she reached the end of the hall only one of the twelve candles remained lighted, and the girls were in peals of laughter.

"’’Tis the last rose of summer left blooming alone,’" Peggy quoted tragically, but Amy was in no mood to see the humor of the situation.

"Did you ever hear of anything so dreadful?" she moaned. "What a year! Only one lucky month in it."

The girls laughed again at her horrified tone, and Peggy crossed the room and shook her playfully.

"You’re actually pale, you ridiculous, superstitious creature," she said severely. "As if it wasn’t all a joke. I guess we’ll have some refreshments now to revive you."

The refreshments were of the simplest sort; nuts and apples, with plates of home-made candy, but they added vastly to the evening’s entertainment. The chestnuts were placed in pairs on the coals of the grate fire, and when they bounded apart, as the most of them did, great excitement developed in the little company. From the English walnuts, tiny vessels were constructed and launched in couples on the troubled waters of the tub. If the little craft stuck together in their voyage across, the omen was counted a good one, while their parting company was hailed with lamentation.

All this gaiety had taken time. The hands of the clock were pointing to half past eleven. "The question is," said Peggy solemnly, "who’s to be the one to go down the cellar-stairs."

Several of the girls shuddered, but no one volunteered. "It won’t be me," cried Amy, excitement rendering her defiant of grammar. "I wouldn’t do it for the world; would you?" she added, finding Elaine’s eyes fixed on her curiously.

"Do what? I don’t understand."

"Why, just as the clock is striking twelve, you go down the cellar-stairs, with a candle in one hand and a mirror in the other."

"You go down backward," Ruth reminded her.

"O, yes. You must walk backward. And when you get to the bottom of the stairs you set the mirror down somewhere and the candle in front of it, and begin to eat an apple."

Apparently the solemnity of the proceeding was failing to make due impression on Elaine. Amy’s voice became thrillingly mysterious.

"You must look and look into the mirror as hard as you can, all the time that you’re eating the apple. And, before you’ve finished, a face will be looking over your shoulder. O my!" Amy indulged in a prolonged shiver.

"I wouldn’t do it for worlds," she repeated.

"How odd! I shouldn’t mind it at all," said Elaine.

"Why, then you can do it," Peggy cried. "You’re just the one. Light that red candle, Priscilla. No, not that. The largest one. Here’s your mirror and your apple, and you must be ready to start down the stairs the minute the clock begins to strike twelve."

"It’s a pretty big apple, considering what I’ve had already," laughed Elaine. "Is it necessary to eat it all?"

Peggy assured her that this was very necessary, that even the core must be disposed of, but Amy cast upon the daring stranger a glance of unfeigned admiration. "Isn’t she brave?" she said to Blanche, in an undertone, and a little assenting murmur went the rounds. Few people are displeased by earning a reputation for heroism cheaply, and Elaine was smiling good-humoredly as she took her stand in front of the cellar door, the mirror in one hand, and the lighted candle in the other, while she held the apple in her teeth, Peggy assuring her gravely that this was indispensable to the success of the charm.

The grandfather’s clock in the hall began to strike in its usual deliberate fashion. Peggy swung the door open and closed it again as Elaine began her hesitating descent into the darkness. At the bottom of the stairs she found two boxes placed in evident preparation for the ceremony, the taller against the wall, the lower just in front of it. Elaine set down the mirror, placed the candle beside it, and, seating herself on the smaller box, began to eat her apple.

It was very still upstairs. Elaine wondered smilingly how it was possible for so many chatterboxes to preserve so protracted a silence. The Friendly Terrace girls were a jolly crowd, that was certain, especially Peggy. Elaine’s heart warmed as she thought of the stranger who had bidden her welcome as if she were already a friend. If there were more people in the world like Peggy--

The trend of her thought broke off sharply. The candle must have flickered. That was the explanation of the odd appearance in the mirror. She leaned forward and the apple dropped from her hand, and bumped to the cellar floor. From the dimly lighted disk, two eyes looked back at her.

In the momentary confusion of her ideas, Elaine was conscious only of a deep-rooted resentment against Amy. It was her foolish talk and her shivers which had got on her nerves and was responsible for this wild fancy. And while her common sense struggled to keep its supremacy over her growing panic, the eyes rolled in the mirror, as if a head had turned, and something brushed her cheek.

Elaine’s shrieks were answered by a chorus of screams from the room above. There was a wild rush of feet and the cellar door was flung open. Elaine could hear Amy’s uplifted voice declaring, "She’s seen something! I tell you she’s seen something!" As Peggy rushed madly down the stairs to the rescue of her guest, a big tawny shape bounded to meet her.

"Get out of the way, Taffy. Get out!" Peggy commanded impatiently, and the dog whined his disappointment at such a greeting. But Elaine, when Peggy reached her, was laughing and crying together.

"You poor darling!" Peggy flung her arms about her friend and glared defiantly into the darkness. "What happened? Did you see anything?"

"It must have been the--the dog," sobbed Elaine. "He came up be-behind me so softly, I didn’t hear him, and I saw his eyes in the mirror. I d-didn’t know he was down here."

By the time the two had got upstairs, merriment had replaced consternation among Peggy’s guests. The appearance of Taffy, waving a triumphant yellow tail, suggested the explanation of the mystery, rather to the disappointment of some whose expectations had been so highly keyed that the truth seemed really commonplace. The appearance of Elaine, her lashes moist, and her lips still trembling, was the signal for friendly advances on the part of all. The girls gathered about the crestfallen heroine, patted her, petted her, praised her courage in attempting such an adventure, and assured her that none of them would have been brave enough to try it. Occasionally a hint of patronage peeped through the comfort, and Elaine was made aware that she had forfeited her reputation for courage almost as soon as she had made it. But, on the whole, the kindliness was comforting to a girl who carried a sore spot in her inmost heart, and in spite of the untoward ending Elaine carried home a very pleasant impression of her first party on Friendly Terrace.

*CHAPTER VI*

*ELAINE HAS VISITORS*

It was Priscilla who, on the way home from school the next day, suggested stopping to see if Elaine had quite recovered from the effects of the Hallowe’en party. She made the remark to Peggy, but Amy, who with Ruth was walking just behind the others, took it on herself to answer.

"Yes, that was just what I was thinking. It wouldn’t be any more than neighborly after her fright, and all the rest of it."

Priscilla choked down an exasperated sigh. She said to herself it was strange Amy couldn’t realize that there might be occasions when one wanted Peggy to one’s self. At the same time it was not altogether Amy’s obtuseness which was responsible for the difficulty of monopolizing Peggy’s society. Peggy herself, with her trick of liking everybody, and expecting all her friends to like one another, made monopoly difficult, if not impossible.

Accordingly four girls, instead of two, turned in at the Marshall cottage. The chatter of voices on the porch told Elaine that she had visitors and she came to the door in something of a flutter, for, with all her air of self-sufficiency, Elaine was shy at heart, as is often the case with people who hold their acquaintances at arms’ length. She was uncertain, as she admitted the quartet, whether or not to ask them into the parlor, but Peggy, who had caught sight of Mrs. Marshall seated in great state in the living-room, and apparently absorbed in the contemplation of a steel-engraving over the mantel, settled the question by bearing down upon the engrossed lady and giving her a hearty greeting.

Mrs. Marshall welcomed her daughter’s visitors with an air nicely balanced between cordiality and condescension. Nearly everything that Mrs. Marshall said and did conveyed the impression that she had seen better days, and that she would not submit to being judged by her present environment. Peggy, who had a perfect mania for cheering people, found Mrs. Marshall’s air of melancholy a perpetual challenge, and, when Mrs. Marshall gave her a chance, she occasionally succeeded in bringing a smile to that lady’s severe countenance, much to her own delight, and to Mrs. Marshall’s astonishment.

She dropped into a chair next to Elaine’s mother, and addressed her as soon as the introductions were over. "I hope you weren’t lonely last evening, Mrs. Marshall, with Elaine away."

"I am used to loneliness, Miss Margaret," Mrs. Marshall returned pensively. "It is one of the many hard things to which I am now forced to accustom myself. When I was Elaine’s age--"

Peggy resigned herself to listen to a story of past glories while the other girls plunged into a discussion of the party. "What a fright we all had when you screamed!" Amy laughed. "But, of course, it was worse for you than for anybody else. Did you feel all right this morning?"

"I felt a little cheap," Elaine acknowledged with a smile, while her color rose, "That was all."

"You’re not the only one to feel that way," Priscilla comforted her. "There were some sheepish boys at school this morning. My father is the high-school principal, you know."

"Yes, Peggy spoke of it."

"Well, in the middle of the night father thought he heard a little noise around the house and he dressed and went out to the stable. Everything seemed quiet, and he was just starting to go in again when he heard steps outside. He slipped into the carriage, just to see what would happen, and then the door opened and five or six boys came creeping in. They took hold of the shafts of the carriage and started off at a good trot, with father sitting perfectly quiet, not saying a word."

Priscilla stopped to laugh, and her audience, especially the girls who knew the actors in the little comedy, joined her heartily. Peggy, who was hearing of the splendors of Mrs. Marshall’s coming-out party, to which festivity two hundred guests had been invited, cast a wistful glance in the direction of the laughing group, and then, with a twinge of conscience, gave redoubled attention to the tale of by-gone grandeur.

"They carried him out to the new part of town," said Priscilla, continuing her story, "and pulled the carriage over to a vacant lot. And they were feeling so well satisfied with themselves, when father spoke out from behind the curtains, in his very deepest voice. ’Thank you for the ride, boys,’ he said. ’It has been very enjoyable! But I think you may take me home now.’ Of course there wasn’t anything else for them to do, and father rode home in state. He made them pull the carriage into the stable, and then he got out and locked the door and thanked them again, very politely. Father can keep as grave as a judge even when he is dying to laugh. But as soon as he got into the house he woke mother up to enjoy the joke. He just couldn’t wait till morning."

"I guess you had your share of Hallowe’en pranks, didn’t you?" asked Amy, turning to Elaine.

"Why, no. What made you think so?"

"When that carriage passed the house I woke up. It was a sort of uncanny noise, you know, wheels and footsteps, instead of horses’ hoofs. I suspected that something queer happening and I jumped up and looked out of my window, but the carriage had gone before I could get there. But I saw somebody on your porch."

"The boys in this neighborhood were certainly on the rampage last night," observed Ruth.

"But this wasn’t a boy," explained Amy. "It was a woman, or a girl, dressed in a long, loose dress, like a light wrapper."

"How mysterious that sounds," cried Priscilla, and Peggy, who, to her great relief, had reached the end of the coming-out party, put in her word. "It’s something new for the girls of the Terrace to go out playing Hallowe’en tricks."

"But it wasn’t a Hallowe’en trick. There wasn’t anything out of order this morning," Elaine insisted sharply.

"It was something, anyway. I was as wide awake as I am now. It walked back and forth half a dozen times, while I stood looking, and then it seemed to disappear. O, girls, you don’t suppose--"

Amy’s eyes were opened in a half-frightened stare. A girl of good sense in many respects, she had a vein of superstition in her make-up which was one of her greatest weaknesses. Peggy broke into a ringing laugh.

"The Spook on the Porch," she cried, "or the Mystery of Friendly Terrace. O, Amy, what an imagination you have!"

"It wasn’t imagination at all," Amy persisted stubbornly. "It was a woman or something--in a trailing dress. I wasn’t scared a bit. I just thought it was a Hallowe’en prank."

"Don’t you think it’s a lot colder to-day?" asked Elaine of the company in general. Her tone was a little stiff, and Peggy, glancing in her direction, was surprised to see a flush of annoyance on her new friend’s face. Mrs. Marshall, too, had an air of having heard enough about this nocturnal intruder. It was necessary to change the subject promptly, especially as Amy and Priscilla seemed disposed to fall into an argument as to what Amy had really seen.

"I haven’t asked you yet if you’d help in our Bazar, have I?" exclaimed Peggy, addressing Elaine. "It’s the tenth of this month. It was the tenth we decided on at last, wasn’t it, Ruth?"

"Yes, the tenth," Ruth replied, and Priscilla took up the explanation. "It’s for the Empty Stocking Club. We buy dolls with the money we make, and dress them afterward."

"And it’s an awful lot of fun," said Peggy. "Fun all the way, first making the things for the Bazar, and then the Bazar itself, and then buying the dolls and dressing them. And of course giving them to the children is the best fun of all." She looked at Elaine expectantly, but, to her surprise, Elaine hesitated.

"My daughter would have been very glad to help you when our circumstances were different," said Mrs. Marshall, coming to Elaine’s assistance. "My family have always given largely to charity. Solicitors for philanthropic objects often said to my father, ’We like to come to you first, Mr. Elwell, because you always give so generously, and that inspires others.’ And Mr. Marshall, before his business reverses, thought nothing of writing a check for a hundred dollars for a worthy cause."

"The trouble with me," said Elaine abruptly, "is that it is all I can do to help myself." She looked about the little circle, somewhat defiantly, and Peggy, who knew that this piece of confidence was not in the least like Elaine, felt a twinge of regret at having unintentionally forced her to make such an admission.

"You don’t understand. Of course none of us can give big things," she explained hastily. "Now, last year, one of the best sellers at our Bazar was as simple as it could be, and it hardly cost anything. It was only a gingham belt, with two dangling tapes, and, at the end of each tape, a square of gingham padded for lifting things out of the oven. They really are the most convenient things; for, generally, when the cake’s ready to come out, you can’t find anything to lift it with, and so you take your apron, or else a dish towel. We sold them for twenty cents apiece and took orders for a lot more than we had ready."