October pa.s.sed by with flaming crimson and gold on the trees, and orange and mauve toadstools among the moss of the woods, and squirrels scampering up the Scotch pines at the top of the garden, laying by their winter store of nuts; and flocks of migrating birds twittering in the fields, and hosts of glittering red hips and haws in the hedges, and shrouds of fairy gossamer over the blackberry bushes. It was Carmel's first autumn in England, and, though her artistic temperament revelled in the beauty of the tints, the falling leaves filled her with consternation.

"It is so sad to see them all come down," she declared. "Why the trees will soon be quite bare! Nothing but branches left!"

"What else do you expect?" asked Gowan. "They won't keep green all the winter."

"I suppose not. But in Sicily we have so many evergreens and shrubs that flower all the winter. The oranges and lemons begin to get ripe soon after Christmas, and we have agaves and p.r.i.c.kly pears everywhere. I can't imagine a landscape without any leaves!"

"Wait till you see the snow! It's prime then!"

"There's generally snow on Etna, but I haven't been up so high. It doesn't fall where we live."

"Girl alive! Have you never made a s...o...b..ll?"

"Never."

"Then it's a treat in store for you. I sincerely hope we shall have a hard winter."

"We ought to, by the number of berries in the hedges," put in Bertha.

"It's an old saying that they foretell frost.

"'Bushes red with hip and haw, Weeks of frost without a thaw.'

I don't know whether it always comes true, though."

"I'm a believer in superst.i.tions," declared Gowan. "Scotch people generally are, I think. My great-grandmother used to have second sight.

By the by; it's Hallowe'en on Friday! I vote we rummage up all the old charms we can, and try them. It would be ever such fun."

"Topping! Only let us keep it to the Mafia, and not let the others know."

"_Ra_ther! We don't want Laurette and Co. b.u.t.ting in."

The remaining members of the Mafia, when consulted, received the idea with enthusiasm. There is a vein of superst.i.tion at the bottom of the most practical among us, and all of them were well accustomed to practise such rites as throwing spilt salt over the left shoulder, curtseying to the new moon, and turning their money when they heard the cuckoo.

"Not, of course, that it always follows," said Prissie. "On Easter holidays a bird used to come and tap constantly at our drawing-room window at home. It was always doing it. Of course that means 'a death in the family,' but we all kept absolutely hearty and well. Not even a third cousin once removed has died, and it's more than two years ago.

Mother says it was probably catching insects on the gla.s.s. She laughs at omens!"

"I always double my thumb inside my fist if I walk under a ladder,"

volunteered Noreen.

"Well, it _is_ unlucky to go under a ladder," declared Phillida. "You may get a pot of paint dropped on your head! I saw that happen once to a poor lady: it simply turned upside down on her, and deluged her hat and face and everything with dark green paint. She had to go into a shop to be wiped. It must have been awful for her, and for her clothes as well.

I've never forgotten it."

"What could we do on Hallowe'en?" asked Edith.

"Well, we must try to think it out, and make some plans."

From the recesses of their memories the girls raked up every superst.i.tion of which they had ever heard. These had to be divided into the possible and the impossible. There are limits of liberty in a girls'

school, and it was manifestly infeasible, as well as very chilly, to attempt to stray out alone at the stroke of twelve, robed merely in a nightgown, and fetch three pails of water to place by one's bedside.

Gowan's north country recipe for divination was equally impracticable--to go out at midnight, and "dip your smock in a south-running spring where the lairds' lands meet," then hang it to dry before the fire. They discussed it quite seriously, however, in all its various aspects.

"To begin with, what exactly is a smock?" asked Carmel.

Everybody had a hazy notion, but n.o.body was quite sure about it.

"Usen't farm laborers to wear them once?" suggested Lilias.

"But Shakespeare says,

"'When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks, When ring the woods with rooks and daws, And maidens bleach their summer smocks,'"

objected Prissie.

"Was it an upper or an under garment?" questioned Noreen.

"I'm sure I don't know. I don't fancy we any of us possess 'smocks'!"

"Then we certainly can't go and soak them in a spring!"

"And there is no 'laird' here, and even if you count an ordinary owner of property as a 'laird,' you don't know where the boundaries are!"

"No, that floors us completely!"

An expedition to the cellar for apples would be an equally hopeless quest, for all the harvest of the orchard had been stored in the loft, and was under lock and key. Some minor experiments, however, might be tried with apple skins, so they determined to pocket their next dessert, and keep it till the magic hour of divination arrived. Hot chestnuts would be a distinct possibility, and a little coaxing at head-quarters would doubtless result in Jones the gardener bringing a bag full for them from Glazebrook.

They felt quite excited when the fateful day arrived. Miss Walters had made no objection to an order for chestnuts, and had even allowed a modic.u.m of toffee to be added to the list. She did not refer to the subject of Hallowe'en, for she had some years ago suppressed the custom of bobbing for apples, finding that the girls invariably got their hair wet, and had colds in their heads in consequence.

The members of the Mafia, well stocked therefore with the apples and chestnuts necessary for divination, remained in their schoolroom after evening preparation, so as to have a gay time all to themselves. To make matters more thrillsome they turned out the light, and sat in the flickering glow of the fire. Gowan, having the largest acquaintance with the occult, not to speak of having possessed a great-grandmother endowed with second sight, was universally acknowledged priestess of the ceremonies.

"Shall we begin with apples or chestnuts?" she asked seriously.

As some said one thing and some another, she held a specimen of each behind her back, and commanded Carmel to choose right hand or left. The lot fell upon chestnuts, and these were placed neatly in pairs along the bars of the grate.

"You name them after yourself and your sweetheart," explained Gowan. "If he pops first, he'll ask you to marry him."

"And suppose the other pops first?" asked Carmel.

"Then you won't marry him!"

"Doesn't it mean that it may be Leap Year, and the girl will 'pop the question'?" asked Dulcie, still giggling.

"No, it doesn't."

"Suppose they neither of them pop?" said Prissie.

"It's a sign that neither cares, but it's not very likely to happen--they nearly always pop."

"I p.r.i.c.ked mine with my penknife, though."

"The more goose you! Take them back and try two fresh ones."