hich they had ever heard. These had to be divided into
the possible and the impossible. There are limits of liberty in a girls'
school, and it was manifestly infeasible, as well as very chilly, to
attempt to stray out alone at the stroke of twelve, robed merely in a
nightgown, and fetch three pails of water to place by one's bedside.
Gowan's north country recipe for divination was equally
impracticable--to go out at midnight, and "dip your smock in a
south-running spring where the lairds' lands meet," then hang it to dry
before the fire. They discussed it quite seriously, however, in all its
various aspects.

"To begin with, what exactly is a smock?" asked Carmel.

Everybody had a hazy notion, but nobody was quite sure about it.

"Usen't farm laborers to wear them once?" suggested Lilias.

"But Shakespeare says,

"'When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
When ring the woods with rooks and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,'"

objected Prissie.

"Was it an upper or an under garment?" questioned Noreen.

"I'm sure I don't know. I don't fancy we any of us possess 'smocks'!"

"Then we certainly can't go and soak them in a spring!"

"And there is no 'laird' here, and even if you count an ordinary owner
of property as a 'laird,' you don't know where the boundaries are!"

"No, that floors us completely!"

An expedition to the cellar for apples would be an equally hopeless
quest, for all the harvest of the orchard had been stored in the loft,
and was under lock and key. Some minor experiments, however, might be
tried with apple skins, so they determined to pocket their next dessert,
and keep it till the magic hour of divination arrived. Hot chestnuts
would be a distinct possibility, and a little coaxing at head-quarters
would doubtless result in Jones the gardener bringing a bag full for
them from Glazebrook.

They felt quite excited when the fateful day arrived. Miss Walters had
made no objection to an order for chestnuts, and had even allowed a
modicum of toffee to be added to the list. She did not refer to the
subject of Hallowe'en, for she had some years ago suppressed the custom
of bobbing for apples, finding that the girls invariably got their hair
wet, and had colds in their heads in consequence.

The members of the Mafia, well stocked therefore with the apples and
chestnuts necessary for divination, remained in their schoolroom after
ev