n a small but an
exceedingly smart scale. All told, there were not more than fifty on
hand--and accounted for--by ten o'clock. A good many had come in
costume--as zanies, Pantaloons, witches, Pierrots, Columbines, clowns
and simples. For those who wore evening dress the hostess had provided a
store of dunce caps and dominos of gay colours. Nearly everybody
present already knew nearly everybody else. There were only five or six
guests from out of town, and of these Mme. Josephine Ybanca, wife of the
great South American diplomat, and Miss Evelyn Ballister, sister of the
distinguished Western statesman, were by odds the handsomest. Of women
there were more than men; there usually are more women than men in
evidence at such affairs.

At about ten o'clock, Mrs. Hadley-Smith stood out on the floor under the
arch connecting but not exactly separating the joined rooms.

"Listen, please, everybody!" she called, and the motley company, obeying
the summons, clustered about her. "The musicians won't be here until
midnight. After they have come and after we've had supper there will be
dancing. But until midnight we are going to play games--old games, such
as I'm told they played in England two hundred years ago on May Day and
on All Fools' Day and on Halloween. There'll be no servants about and no
one to bother us and we'll have these rooms to ourselves to do just as
we please in."

A babble of politely enthusiastic exclamations rose. The good-looking
widow could always be depended upon to provide something unusual when
she entertained.

"I've asked my cousin, Mildred, to take charge of this part of our
party," went on the hostess. "She has been studying up on the subject,
I believe." She looked about her. "Oh, Mildred, where are you?"

"Here," answered Miss Smith, emerging from a corner, pretty Madame
Ybanca coming with her. "Madame Ybanca has on such marvellous,
fascinating old jewelry to-night; I was just admiring it. Are you ready
to start?"

"Quite ready, if you are."

Crossing to the one table in sight Miss Smith took the party-coloured
cover from a big square cardboard box. Seemingly the box was filled to
the top with black silk handkerchiefs; thick, heavy black handkerchiefs
they were.

"As a beginning," she announced, "we are going to play a new kind of
Blind Man's Buff. That is to say, it may be new to us, though some of
our remote ancestors no doubt played it a century or so back. In the
game we played as chil