"I wouldn't do it for anything!" said Sarah Hobart. "I heard of a girl who tried it once, and saw a shroud!" But Leslie was full of fun that evening, and ready to do anything. She took the little mirror that Ruth brought her from up stairs, put on a shawl, and we all went to the front door with her, to see her off. "Round the piazza, and down the bank," said Barbara, "and backward all the way." So Leslie backed out at the door, and we shut it upon her. The instant after, we heard a great laugh. Off the piazza, she had stepped backward, directly against two gentlemen coming in. Doctor Ingleside was one, coming to get his supper; the other was a friend of his, just arrived in Z----. "Doctor John Hautayne," he said, introducing him by his full name. We knew why. He was proud of it. Doctor John Hautayne was the army surgeon who had been with him in the Wilderness, and had ridden a stray horse across a battle-field, in his shirt-sleeves, right in front of a Rebel battery, to get to some wounded on the other side. And the Rebel gunners, holding their halyards, stood still and shouted. It put an end to the tricks, except the snap-dragon. We had not thought how late it was; but mother and Ruth had remembered the oysters. Doctor John Hautayne took Leslie out to supper. We saw him look at her with a funny, twinkling curiosity, as he stood there with her in the full light; and we all thought we had never seen Leslie look prettier in all her life. After supper, Miss Pennington lighted up her Dragon, and threw in her snaps. A very little brandy, and a bowl full of blaze. Maria Hendee "snapped" first, and got a preserved date. "Ancient and honorable," said Miss Pennington, laughing. Then Pen Pennington tried, and got nothing. "You thought of your own fingers," said her aunt. "A fig for my fortune!" cried Barbara, holding up her trophy. "It came from the Mediterranean," said Mrs. Ingleside, over her shoulder into her ear; and the ear burned. Ruth got a sugared almond. "Only a _kernel_," said the merry doctor's wife, again. The doctor himself tried, and seized a slip of candied flag. "Warm-hearted and useful, that is all," said Mrs. Ingleside. "And tolerably pungent," said the doctor. Doctor Hautayne drew forth--angelica. Most of them were too timid or irresolute to grasp anything. "That's the analogy," said Miss Pennington. "One must take the risk of getting scorched. It is 'the woman who dares,' after all." It was great fun, though. Mother cut the cake. That was the last sport of the evening. If I should tell you who got the ring, you would think it really meant something. And the year is not out yet, you see. But there was no doubt of one thing,--that our Halloween at Westover was a famous little party. * * * * * "How do you all feel about it?" asked Barbara, sitting down on the hearth in the brown room, before the embers, and throwing the nuts she had picked up about the carpet into the coals.