consented, although they are
only six years old. She said she would dress up in a sheet and
pillow-case herself, and come with them, to see that nothing happened to
them, so I suppose she is somewhere in the line. I was told that
everybody in the neighbourhood was coming; old people as well as
children, but I'll leave you to find out for yourself, as the fun of a
party like this is in the guessing. They will unmask before they go
home."

The procession glided on in silence until it reached the house, and then
ranged itself in a long line in front of the group on the porch.

"There are thirty-eight," whispered Joyce. "I counted them. Isn't that
one at the end funny? That one in a bolster-case tied at the top, and
his hands sticking out of the slits at the sides, like fishes' fins. I'm
almost sure that it is Keith. I could tell if I could only see his
hands, but he has white stockings drawn over them."

The figures began waving to and fro, faster and faster, until they were
all drawn into a weird, uncanny dance, in which each one flapped or
writhed or swayed back and forth as he pleased, in ghostly silence. The
movements of the ones in the bolster-cases were the most comical, and
the little audience on the porch laughed until they could only gasp and
hold their sides.

At a signal from the tall leader, the sheeted party suddenly divided,
half of the masked faces grinning on one side of the steps, and half
going to the other. Then an auction began, one side being sold to the
other. The bidding was all in pantomime, and they all looked so much
alike that nobody knew whom he was bidding for, or to whom he was
knocked down. The giant was the auctioneer.

At last each bidder was provided with a partner, and two by two they all
went gravely up the steps to shake hands with Mrs. Sherman and the
girls. Every one spoke in an assumed voice, and recognition was almost
impossible. The girls talked with every one in turn, but Rob and Keith
were the only boys they had recognised when the signal for unmasking was
given, and little Bethel Cassidy was the only girl. They knew her queer
little lisp.

Cake and sherbet were brought out, and great was everybody's
astonishment when masks were slipped off, and the pillow-cases jerked
away from the wearers' rumpled hair. To Keith's disgust, he found that
the partner whom he had bid for energetically, thinking it was Sally
Fairfax, was only his brother Malcolm, and Malcolm teased him all