Chapter II: Part 2

The can of paint, which, lending its odor to the breeze, had quite submerged the fragrance of the honeysuckle, stood conveniently near the chair, and Peggy was absorbed in transferring the contents of the one to the battered surface of the other. The first results of the transference did not impress the beholder as successful, for the chair had been painted black in the first place, and the original hue, showing distinctly through the coat of paint, suggested a brown cheek veiled in white. But, undisturbed by her failure to produce the effect she wanted, without any irritating delays, Peggy worked away cheerily, humming a tune under her breath, and so absorbed was she in her task that she did not hear a light step coming across the grass. Her first intimation that she was not alone was when a somewhat hesitating voice said, "I beg your pardon."

With a start Peggy looked up. At the sight of Elaine her face crinkled into a smile of such unmistakable pleasure that only a very peculiar person could have felt indifferent to being its exciting cause.

"Why, it’s you, isn’t it?" exclaimed Peggy radiantly, springing from her knees with a haste which came near to overturning the can of paint. "I can’t ask you to take a chair, because the only chair there is is pretty well covered with paint by now. But I’ll pull out the wheelbarrow--"

"O, I can’t stay long enough to sit down," Elaine said hastily. She was on the point of saying more, but quite unconscious that she was interrupting, Peggy broke in.

"I suppose you wondered what I was doing. You see one of the chairs in my bed-room went to pieces the other day. Amy was sitting on it at the time, and she was quite mortified. Amy is plump, and she decided right away that she wouldn’t eat any more candy for six months, if she was getting so big that ordinary furniture wouldn’t bear her weight." Peggy interrupted herself by an infectious laugh and chattered on, "And so I’ve got to have a new chair--"

"A _new_ chair," repeated Elaine, surprise causing her to give a rather impolite emphasis to the adjective.

Peggy laughed again. "The new things for my room are a good deal like some folks’ new dresses, the made-over, new kind, you know. But I almost think I like them all the better. Take this chair, for instance." Peggy indicated the article in question by a sweeping gesture of her paint brush. "It isn’t much to look at just now."

"No!" Elaine acknowledged, apparently glad to find a point on which she could agree with Peggy. "It isn’t."

"It’ll have to have quite a number of coats," Peggy explained. "And when the paint is thick enough, so that the black doesn’t show through, I’ll tack a square of blue denim over the seat. If you put it on with braid and gilt-headed tacks, it is quite effective."

Elaine’s start was not due to admiration for the glowing picture Peggy’s words had conjured up, but rather to consternation over her own negligence. "O, I forgot!" she exclaimed, and hesitated. She was so plainly embarrassed that Peggy felt vaguely uncomfortable herself. But she did not have time to wonder why, before Elaine was launched on an explanation.

"Mamma sent me over to say that she objects to the smell of paint, and to ask if you would mind--"

Elaine hesitated again. Her air of confusion did not seem consistent with the impression Peggy had formed of her. As for Peggy herself, she was equally divided between sympathy for the bearer of the message, and regret over her interrupted task.

"I suppose I should have stopped to think which way the wind was blowing," she said quickly. "But somehow I never can remember that some people dislike the smell of paint. It seems so clean, and it always makes me think how nice things are going to look when you are done." She studied the unfinished chair, and suppressed a sigh. "I’ll just dab a little more paint on this round, and then I’ll set it in the woodshed and wait till the wind is from the east."

Peggy gave her attention to a particularly battered portion of the chair’s anatomy, till she was aroused from her absorption by a question. The voice which asked it was intense, almost tragically so, in striking contrast to the serenity of the afternoon.

"Don’t you hate, hate, _hate_ to be poor?"

A big spot of white paint added itself to the decoration of the calico skirt, as Peggy stared up at her interrogator. "Why, I don’t know," she acknowledged, "I guess I never thought about it."

"Not thought about it? Why, how can you help it when you have to do things like this?" Elaine made a scornful gesture, in the direction of the woe-begone chair. "Just suppose that all you had to do when you wanted something new was to go and buy it."

Peggy laughed a little. "I’m afraid my imagination isn’t equal to that," she replied cheerily. "And, anyway, this sort of thing is such fun!"

"Fun!" echoed Elaine, with an incredulous gasp.

"Why, yes! To take something like this chair and fix it up so that it is useful and pretty is real fun. And so are lots of things about housework. There’s cooking, now."

"I don’t know a thing about cooking." Elaine had moved a little nearer Peggy, as if afraid of losing something. Her air of interest was unmistakable.

"Well, I love it all, but the nicest part, I think, is taking the left-overs, you know, the cold potatoes, and the ends of the steak, and fixing them up into real nice appetizing dishes."

"I tried getting luncheon to-day," Elaine acknowledged. "I was going to make an omelette because I thought that would be easy. It burned to start with, and then instead of puffing up light, it flattened out till it was just like india-rubber. And Mamma can’t cook any better. I don’t know what we are going to do."

Peggy looked sympathetically at the troubled face beside her. "Why, if you’d like," she began, then hesitated, remembering her past experience. But having started the sentence there seemed no way out of finishing it. "I’ll be glad to show you all I know," she ended with a gulp.

Apparently the present Elaine, staring moodily at Peggy’s handiwork, bore little resemblance to the Elaine who had frigidly declined the cinnamon rolls. She drew a long, sighing breath, "I’d like to learn," she replied. "But I’m afraid I’d be dreadfully stupid about it."

It was Peggy’s habit to strike while the iron was hot. "It’s Sally’s day out," she said. "I’m going to get supper. Wouldn’t you like a lesson this afternoon?"

"Are you sure it wouldn’t be a bother?"

Peggy’s ears had not deceived her. The friendly offer had not been declined. With a face as radiant as if she had just received notification of a legacy, she hurried to make arrangements with her prospective pupil.

"Come over about four. That’ll give us lots of time for experiments." She carried the half-painted chair into the woodshed in a jubilant mood, which was rather remarkable considering that she had been prevented from finishing the task on which she had started. Like all energetic people Peggy detested interruptions. But this was too much of a red-letter day for her to allow herself to be depressed by trifles.

Promptly at four Elaine presented herself, wearing over her black serge dress a little embroidered apron, about the size of a pocket-handkerchief. Peggy regarded the lace-edged affair with an amazement which Elaine mistook for admiration.

"Pretty, isn’t it?" she said, glancing down at it complacently. "It was a Christmas present."

"It would be fine for a chafing-dish supper," Peggy returned, feeling that if she were to act as Elaine’s instructor she must begin with the fundamentals. "Chafing dishes and the aprons that go with them are all right for fun, but, when it comes to real business, there’s nothing like a good range and a big apron. I’ll lend you one of mine."

Elaine, enveloped in a long apron which fell to the bottom of her skirt, was soon being initiated into some of the preliminary mysteries of household economy. "There are five of us Raymonds to get supper for," Peggy said counting them off on her fingers. "And Dick’s always so hungry that he counts for two. You’ll stay, won’t you?"

"O, I’d better not. I don’t know anybody but you."

"That’ll be the best way to get acquainted. And, besides, if you help with the cooking, you ought to help eat the things. That’s half the fun. I don’t know how anybody can be a good cook who hasn’t got a good appetite. I simply adore the things I make."

After a careful examination of the refrigerator the supper was planned. There had been baked fish for dinner, and the remnants, Peggy explained to the respectfully attentive Elaine, arranged in a baking dish, with cream sauce between the layers and crumbs on top, would be even more delicious than the fish in its original state. Peggy also decided on baking powder biscuits. "They’re such handy things," she said. "And you can stir them up so quickly and keep on baking as long as anybody is hungry; so they’re one of the very first things you should learn to make."

Working with Peggy, Elaine began to understand why she found everything "fun." The neat, pleasant kitchen had a charm of its own. There was an agreeable excitement about the business of evolving a palatable supper from materials which the eye of inexperience had found unpromising. Elaine asked a great many questions, helped a little, in an awkward fashion, which unkind critics would have pronounced a hindrance rather than an aid, and was conscious of a steadily increasing respect for this deft-handed girl who knew so well what she wanted to do and how to do it.

The telephone bell rang while Peggy was sifting out the flour for the biscuits. She dusted her hands, and went to answer it. "Very well, father," Elaine heard her say, and she was smiling when she came running back.

"We’re going to have company," she announced to Elaine as if the news were pleasant. "A Mr. White, one of father’s friends." She reflected a moment, frowning thoughtfully. "I guess we’ll put some potatoes in the oven to bake. There’ll be time enough if we pick out small ones, and there’s plenty of the fruit cake."

The potatoes were washed hastily and consigned to the oven, and Peggy sifted out a little more flour. Then the door bell rang and there was a sound of voices in the hall. A moment later Peggy’s mother slipped into the kitchen and shut the door behind her.

"Peggy, old Mr. and Mrs. Andrews have just come. I suppose they’ll stay for supper. Have you got enough for two more?"

"O, yes. We’ll have enough," Peggy answered blithely.

"Don’t you want me to help you?"

"O, I’m getting on finely with my neighbor’s assistance. You can go back and entertain the company." As her mother slipped away, looking relieved, Peggy added to Elaine, "I didn’t know what I was getting you into when I asked you over this afternoon."

"Will there really be enough for so many?" demanded Elaine, feeling rather oppressed by the weight of these unusual responsibilities.

"I’ve had a brilliant idea; I’m going to heat some maple syrup. People like it with hot biscuit, and, besides, it takes off the edge of their appetite," Peggy explained shamelessly. "But we shall have to put an extra leaf in the table, I’m afraid."

At six o’clock everything was ready. A pleasant mixture of odors pervaded the house, the fragrance of coffee being most in evidence. Peggy had just taken a pan of biscuit from the oven, and was calling Elaine’s attention to their flaky lightness, when Dick put his head through the door.

"Say, Peg--"

"O, is that you, Dick? This is our new neighbor, Elaine Marshall."

Dick gave a shy little bob of his head in Elaine’s direction. "Say, Peg," he repeated.

"Yes, dear."

"Looney Batezell’s mother has gone somewhere to supper, and his father, too, and the hired girl won’t fuss to fix him anything decent, and so I just told him to come over here to supper."

Elaine waited for the explosion that did not come. "Very well," Peggy said resignedly. As the door closed and Dick’s footsteps echoed along the hall, she flung a twinkle in Elaine’s direction. "It never rains but it pours," she quoted.

"Why, I don’t see--" Elaine checked herself, reflecting that it was not necessary for the matter to be explained to her satisfaction. But Peggy took it on herself to reply to the unspoken remonstrance.

"I suppose I might have told Dick he couldn’t have Looney to-night. But it’s only one more and it doesn’t really make much difference. Besides we like to have Dick feel that his friends are welcome. When you are bringing up a boy," concluded Peggy, laughing, and still very much in earnest, "you have to think of so many things."

Peggy did not eat her supper that evening till the others had finished. She waited on the table, and baked biscuit, and if there was anything more remarkable than the celerity with which the biscuit plates were cleared, it was the promptness with which they were refilled, each time with flaky, smoking-hot biscuits, which fairly melted in one’s mouth. Only in one respect had Peggy miscalculated, and that was when she remarked that the maple syrup would take off the edge of her guests’ appetites. To all appearances it only whetted them to a more razor-like keenness.

But everybody was satisfied at last, and Peggy ate her own supper, her cheerfulness unimpaired by the fact that the baking dish had been scraped clean before her turn came, and that her baked potato was overdone. She protested against Elaine’s determination to stay and help her with the dishes, but Elaine was firm.

"It’s only fair, as part payment for my lesson. And, besides, I dare say I need to learn things about washing dishes as well as cooking."

As a matter of fact, Elaine had learned several things that afternoon, and the secret of making baking-powder biscuits was not perhaps the most important. She had seen a girl not far from her own age equal to an emergency which older housekeepers would have found trying, keeping her head clear and temper unruffled. Elaine was beginning to understand that it was not what Peggy did, so much as her way of doing it, that set her apart.

"I feel real selfish keeping you so long," Peggy declared, when the last dish was in its place. "Your poor mother will have been awfully lonely."

"O, no, she--" Elaine paused with an air of checking herself on the verge of an admission. "Mamma doesn’t mind being alone," she ended, but Peggy was quite sure that this was not what she had intended to say.

Peggy stood in the doorway while her new friend and pupil crossed the yard, passed through the opening in the hedge and tried her own door. It was locked, and Elaine knocked and waited till her mother came to let her in. As the door opened Elaine turned and waved a good night to the figure framed in light, watching to be sure that she was safely home.

As Peggy returned the greeting, something odd happened. In the room above a shade was lowered. All that Peggy saw was an extended arm and a white hand pulling down the shade, but she stood staring as if this had been a most out-of-the-way proceeding.

"Queer thing," mused Peggy. "Elaine and her mother are downstairs at the door, and they haven’t any servant, and I’m sure I thought Mrs. Marshall was alone this evening."

She looked blankly at the non-committal shade, then remembered her morning’s lessons, and, closing the door, ran upstairs to her school books. By bed-time she had forgotten to wonder whose hand had lowered the shade in that upstairs room.

*CHAPTER V*

*A HALLOWE’EN PARTY*

While Peggy’s acquaintance with Elaine had been steadily progressing, the other girls were little farther along than on the memorable morning when they welcomed the wrong hack. Priscilla had begun to speak of "Peggy’s friend" with an intonation which showed resentment.

"It’s because we live next to each other, I suppose," said Peggy, who never imagined that her own sunniness of disposition could prove a magnet to attract friends and was always devising explanations for their abundance. "You haven’t had a fair chance. I believe I’ll give a Hallowe’en party, so that Elaine can get acquainted with the rest of you."

The suggestion awakened an enthusiasm that had little connection with Elaine. Peggy’s parties were simple affairs, old-fashioned, one might call them. There was no orchestra playing behind a screen of palms, no elaborate refreshments, no display of pretty frocks. Indeed Peggy very often said, "Don’t put on your good clothes; you might hurt them." Many a girl of Peggy’s age who regards herself as a young lady would turn up her nose at one of Peggy’s parties, where everybody came at eight o’clock and went home correspondingly early, and where nobody made an effort to appear grown up. But since Peggy’s guests invariably had a good time, "the best time ever," they were likely to declare, Peggy was entirely satisfied.

Elaine, being new to the traditions of the Terrace, opened her eyes when Peggy tendered her an invitation across the hedge. "A Hallowe’en party," she repeated, a question in her voice. "Isn’t that rather--"

"Rather what?" inquired Peggy with such good-natured curiosity that Elaine almost regretted her beginning.

"O, nothing. Only a Hallowe’en party seems rather childish, don’t you think?"

"I didn’t think anything about it, except that it was fun," Peggy answered tranquilly. And then she added the warning so likely to accompany Peggy’s invitations, "Don’t wear your good clothes."

"What!"

"I mean don’t wear anything good enough to hurt."

"I haven’t anything particularly nice," said Elaine with dignity, "but if I’m going to a party where I’ll meet a lot of strangers I naturally shall wear my best." She looked at Peggy half resentfully, half perplexedly, reflecting as she did so that Peggy was the sort of girl who could wear an old dress to a party and have a good time in spite of it. But, then, Peggy wasn’t like other people. A very short residence on the Terrace had been long enough to bring Elaine to this conclusion.

Peggy was very busy the next ten days. She had never been accustomed to much spending money, and she had early learned that for the drawback of a slender purse there is abundant compensation in cleverness and ingenuity. Whatever pleasure Peggy’s parties gave her friends, she enjoyed them doubly, for she had the pleasure of preparation along with the other. If a bubbling laugh escaped over the transom of Peggy’s room, when she was supposed to be abed and asleep, some member of the household was sure to say, "Peggy’s got a new idea," and to smile in sympathy.

That some busy brain had been evolving ideas, and that busy hands had been carrying them out, was evident enough on the night of the thirty-first. The light was turned low in the hall, and a sheeted figure at the door welcomed each comer with extended hand. The ceremony of hand-shaking was generally followed by little shrill squeals on the part of the arrivals, and voluble exclamations.

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."

"And, sometimes, you can make a dear little work-bag out of pieces you have in the house," suggested Ruth. "I made a real pretty one last year: don’t you remember, Peggy? If I had piece of newspaper I could show you just how it was done. You can use scraps of silk and ribbon you wouldn’t think were good for anything."

Somebody found the necessary newspaper, and Ruth hastily constructed a pattern of the article she had tried to describe, while Elaine listened, her color rising steadily. The girls had misunderstood her, and their efforts to show her how she could help without being at any expense added to her sense of humiliation. What she had really meant to imply was that a girl situated as she was, should be exempt from any obligations to help other people. Elaine looked upon herself as an object of sympathy. It was bad enough to face the prospect that one’s own stocking would be empty at Christmas time--relatively empty, at least--but to be asked to help fill other stockings was adding insult to injury.

Yet this, hard as it was, did not cut as deeply as the suggestions the girls were now making, with the best intentions in the world. Poverty, from Elaine’s standpoint, was equally a misfortune and a disgrace. She had confessed defiantly to being poor, without dreaming that her callers would take her at her word, and proceed on the assumption that in her case economy was really a matter of importance. When Priscilla started in with a description of a hat-pin holder, the materials of which, she assured Elaine, impressively, wouldn’t cost more than ten cents at the outside, Elaine felt that she had reached the limit of endurance.

"There!" she exclaimed as if the thought had just occurred to her. "I believe I have a little thing ready that I could contribute." She went to her room, a sense of triumph effacing the intolerable humiliation of the past few minutes. The sacrifice she was about to make was insignificant compared with her opportunity to silence her advisers, and to prove that in spite of the reverses with which the family had met, she could be as generous as anybody. The article for which Elaine was looking was put away carefully, wrapped in tissue paper. She looked at it with brightening eyes, and returned to her visitors almost jauntily.

"It’s a little thing I made in the summer," she observed casually. "The Irish crochet is awfully popular, you know, and I think the pattern’s rather pretty." With a carelessness almost too pronounced, she dropped her offering on Peggy’s knee. "If that will do you any good, you’re quite welcome to it."

Peggy was staring with all her eyes. "Why, Elaine! Why, girls! It’s a collar. Real Irish crochet! Isn’t it gorgeous!"

Such as it was, Elaine’s triumph was complete. The girls broke into exclamations of admiration, exchanging bewildered glances as they did so.

"She made it herself. Isn’t she a wonder? There won’t be anything at the Bazar to compare with it."

"That ought to bring a splendid price. Just think of the dolls we can buy with all that money."

"It’s _gorgeous_," repeated Peggy. She looked from the dainty article in her hand toward the giver. "Really, Elaine," she hesitated, "it’s too nice. It’s more than you ought to give."

An instant reappearance of Elaine’s old hauteur convinced Peggy that she had blundered. "If I am going to give anything," Elaine said with dignity, "I want it to be nice."

The tactful Peggy abandoned her well-intentioned effort to prevent what she felt sure was a piece of reckless generosity. "Well, you’ve done it," she laughed. "It’s pretty certain that we won’t have anything else nearly as nice as this. And, Elaine, you’ll help us the day of the Bazar, won’t you? There’ll be lots to do, selling the things, and serving the ice cream, and being nice to the people who come in."

Elaine having reinstated herself in her own eyes, by the character of her donation, graciously agreed to lend whatever assistance might be further required, and then everybody seemed to feel at the same moment that it was time to go. Priscilla excused herself on the ground of her lessons. "With your school principal for a father," she explained, "you can’t afford to fail very often." Ruth remembered that Graham was going to bring somebody home to supper. Amy made vague references to letters that must be written. They moved toward the door with less chatter and laughter than usually characterizes the farewells of girls of their age. At the foot of the walk they parted, Amy and Peggy walking on together, while the other two turned in the opposite direction.

"Say, Peggy!" Amy cast a sidelong glance at her companion. "Do you think Elaine is awfully generous?"

Peggy’s eyes opened. "Why, it was very generous to give us that collar," she exclaimed. "You know that Irish lace--"

"O, yes, I know all about it." Under Amy’s careless good nature a shrewdness of observation sometimes cropped out in a rather surprising fashion. "It was generous, if she cared about the Empty Stockings, but something in the way she did it made me feel as if it was mostly intended to impress us."

"O, Amy!" Peggy was unfeignedly shocked. Amy met her reproachful gaze and surrendered with a laugh.

"You funny old Peg!" she said disrespectfully. "Well, never mind _why_ she did it. Our finances will get quite a boost, anyway. Good night." And as she crossed the street, she added with seeming irrelevance, "I’m sorry for anybody who makes such hard work of being poor."

*CHAPTER VII*

*THE BAZAR*

The next ten days were busy ones for the girls of the Terrace. It is true the Bazar had been more or less on their minds throughout the year, and many of them had devoted a generous share of their summer’s leisure to preparation, but now industry had become epidemic. The girls met at one another’s homes after school, and, busy as their tongues were, those nimble organs failed to outstrip the industrious fingers.

Elaine was not invited to any of these gatherings, for the girls all felt that she had done her full share, and that she would probably consider herself imposed on, if asked for further assistance. Dorothy, on the other hand, was an important figure at almost every meeting. To see Dorothy sewing together pieces of bright-colored calico, with stitches an inch long, was a constant incentive to industry, while her habit of waiting till an article was completed before deciding on the use to which it should be put, enlivened the dullest hours. Dorothy scorned to ask advice; she simply put her small head on one side, studied the work of her hands thoughtfully, and, after wavering for five minutes between a doll’s sunbonnet and a penwiper, would perhaps surprise the company by announcing that the nondescript article was a necktie for Aunt Peggy.

The Bazar was usually held at Ruth’s home, as in the Wylie cottage two rooms, separated by folding-doors, could be thrown into one, while the front hall was of more generous proportions than in most of the houses of the Terrace. On the memorable Saturday designated on the calendar as the tenth, the Wylie establishment was a scene of activity suggesting a hive of bees at swarming time. Girls made their appearance laden with baskets and mysterious parcels. Graham Wylie, Ruth’s tall brother, with Dick Raymond, and other boys of the neighborhood, made themselves useful bringing small tables and ferns, borrowed indiscriminately from anyone who would lend them.

Elaine, who had come over to help, had a more pleasant sense of "belonging" than had been hers at any time since the mud-splashed hack had deposited her at the door of the only vacant cottage on the Terrace. She had been assigned to assist with the decorations, and being a girl of excellent taste and original ideas, she gradually found herself taking charge, and directing the others. This was pleasant in itself, and the approving comments called forth by the arrangement of flags over the mantel, and the bunching of the palms and ferns in the front hall, brought an unwonted color to Elaine’s cheeks and brightness to her eyes. Peggy, who was accomplishing as much as any other half-dozen of the workers, paused in her labors long enough to admire the decorative effects, including the remarkable transformation wrought in Elaine’s case by a bright color and a cheery smile.

"To think she could be so pretty," Peggy said wonderingly, and then finding Graham at her elbow she started and colored high.

"That Marshall girl, you mean?" queried Graham, seemingly unaware of her confusion. "Yes, it does make a difference. Most of the time she looks a mixture of starch and vinegar that isn’t particularly attractive. What ails her, anyway?"