says
it's silly superstition. She was dreadfully cross one evening with
Trissie Knowles and Marjorie Ward because she caught them both
curtsying to the new moon. But she lets us have fun with the apples,
and that's all I care about."

At seven o'clock, therefore, on October 31st, when evening preparation
was finished, the four classes collected for the promised
entertainment. Sylvia, whose home life had been a very quiet one, had
never been present on such an occasion, and she anticipated it with
much delight. As Linda had said, Miss Kaye had been liberal enough to
provide a whole barrel of apples, which stood on two chairs placed
together near her desk, the ripest, roundest, rosiest ones which could
possibly be. Several long strings had been fastened to a beam which
ran across the roof, and to the end of each of these an apple was
fastened. The girls in turn had their hands tied behind their backs,
and had to try to take a bite from an apple as it swung to and fro at
the end of its string--a very difficult performance, since it
generally bobbed, and wriggled, and slid away just at the critical
moment when they were about to put their teeth into it, causing a
great deal of mirth and merriment, and much triumph to the lucky one
who managed at last to take a successful mouthful, and so secure the
coveted treasure.

Three large footbaths had also been brought into the schoolroom, and
put on forms, where they were filled with water, and apples. Then the
girls were allowed to gather round, and, holding forks in their
mouths, to drop them into the water in the hope of spearing an apple;
not nearly such an easy feat as it looked, and one which seemed to
depend mostly on good fortune. Of course it was great fun, especially
when Miss Kaye tried it herself, and her fork just stuck in the
largest and juiciest, and then rolled out again, or when Connie
Camden, in despair of having any success, dipped her whole head and
shoulders into the bath, getting so dreadfully drenched in the process
that she was promptly sent upstairs to bed, a sadder and wiser girl;
for Miss Kaye had strictly forbidden any wetting of hair under penalty
of instant expulsion from the room, and she invariably kept to her
word. Sylvia won two apples, both with a fork; she did not prove
clever at catching them with her teeth, though Linda carried away
four, and Marian Woodhouse six altogether, which, however, she shared
with Gwennie, who had had bad luck and