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."