Betty Lee, Sophomore Part 15

"Oh, yes. It's the usual choice between marriage and a career."

"Couldn't I have both?"

"It doesn't work," laughed the gypsy, forgetting her pose. "I mean to say that you may have several serious love affairs and you may choose to marry. When you take your mirror tonight and your candle and look in the mirror, repeat this charm; for it will drive away the goblins and witches and other evil spirits and you may really see the one you are to love best!"

The gypsy handed Betty a piece of paper, cut from a gay Hallowe'en strip of some sort. It was folded and the gypsy warned her not to open it until just before she "performed the fatal rite."

"It will lose its power if you do," said she. "No, friend gypsy, let me see what the fates have for you. Oh, yes. That's a nice hand, good lines, some mentality, not too much, some gifts; you will marry and there will be several, one, two, three children, a long life--but beware a dark woman who will try to come between you and the man you love!"

"She isn't so good," laughed Kathryn after she and Betty left the tent, "but she was jolly all right. If it is a dark woman, it can't be you, Betty, so we'll remain friends, I see."

"I suppose there's some arrangements for the mirror stunt," said Betty.

"Oh, there's the music--let's see where it is. Why, Gypsy, Marcella has a real orchestra--or a number of the pieces anyhow. Listen! They're tuning up!"

The fun of the old-fas.h.i.+oned dances began. The Pirate of Penzance made straight for Betty, who wondered more than ever who he could be. He was evidently speaking in his natural voice, but she had never heard it before, at least it was not at all familiar. Marcella must know him very well, Betty thought, for she noticed a private confab between the two.

Her pirate was very graceful, she thought, and his costume, with its dark red and dark blue, and gay sash with its array of knives, was a good one. The knives he laid aside for the dances, but a.s.sumed them again when it was announced that the company would now proceed to the bas.e.m.e.nt where witches and goblins were holding their annual frolic. "Be very careful," announced the Pirate of Penzance, "and the witches will be friendly."

Down the stairs to the large bas.e.m.e.nt with its concrete floor, tripped the company. Except for the part devoted to the furnaces, the place was decorated and the only light came from large pumpkins, amusingly cut and containing the customary candles. A hollow-voiced witch in a long black robe stood at the door and odd little goblins and black cats and other appropriate Hallowe'en figures hung from the low ceiling of the cellars.

Betty had not seen the place to bob for apples, mentioned by the girl of the receiving line, but here she found it, and groups of boys and girls separated to perform the various Hallowe'en stunts provided. The Pirate of Penzance had held Betty's arm coming down stairs, but now, with the girl she thought was Marcella--indeed it _must_ be--he was guiding this one or that one and helping to start the fun. _Could_ it be Ted Dorrance? He was tall enough, but no; he was good-looking but his chin was different and his mouth firmer some way; and if it were Ted, he had stained his skin darker, that was all.

But Betty had little time to think. She was doing things with the rest, with boys and girls whose ident.i.ty she did not know. Neither Kathryn nor Carolyn were in sight, though the light was dim enough in this spooky place, and they might be around.

And now her turn came to go into the "hole in the wall," a jog of some sort in the solid masonry, before which a black curtain fell. By the light from a widely grinning pumpkin Betty read the charm which was supposed to keep her from baleful influences:

"O Witches and Goblins, by this little light, Please send me the face of my true love tonight!"

"Say it out loud," prompted a voice behind Betty. The black witch stood there.

"All right. Do I light my candle first?"

"Yes." The witch, who wanted to laugh herself and chuckled a little now over something Betty wondered about, held out a match.

Betty scratched the match on the rough stone of the bas.e.m.e.nt's big part.i.tion. It went out and so did a second one. There was a little draught somewhere, that made the curtain shake a little.

"Don't let the third one go out," warned the witch, now solemn and speaking with a deep voice. "When the third one fails, the bad luck hails!"

"How awful!" cried Betty, giggling as she struck the third match. But she held her hand so that the little flame was sheltered from the draught and the candle was lit successfully.

"Better watch the flame while you go behind the curtain," suggested the witch in almost human tones, "and don't set anything on fire. Here's the mirror."

Darkness met Betty as she pa.s.sed beyond the curtain. She felt like examining the place, especially when she heard a door softly close. It seemed right by her--oh, her candle went out! Oh, but it was spooky.

Well, she'd brace up, say her little charm and pretend when she went out that it had been all right.

"O Witches and Goblins, by this little light, Please send me the face of my true love tonight!"

Betty's voice was a little unsteady. It wasn't any fun to be in this unknown spot all in the dark. That thick curtain behind her didn't let in a bit of light. She'd wait just the appropriate moment when she would be supposed to look in the mirror and then _wouldn't_ she skip out!

But in that little moment a match struck close by her and while she could not help a low exclamation, her candle was lit for her and a voice whispered, "Good work. You didn't squeal or anything. I was here just for fun, but I didn't blow your candle out. I shut the door that had sprung open. See?"

"Oh!" gasped Betty, looking at the brown hands that lit the candle.

"Now you shall see somebody, if it isn't your own true love," whispered the voice. "Look in your mirror, t.i.tania!"

Betty looked. She saw the dark costume of the Pirate of Penzance, whose amused face, _without the mask_, smiled at her from the mirror. "Oh!"

she gasped again.

"Now let me see _you_ without the mask," whispered the lips in the mirror.

Betty handed her candle to the pirate and obediently took off her mask, smiling up with confidence into the "nice face" that the supposed pirate carried.

"Thanks," said he, "Good-bye."

The pirate blew out the candle this time and Betty heard the door near at hand softly close. He had gone, and Betty lost no time in appearing beyond the curtain. The witch looked suspiciously at her and Betty was glad that the light was dim in the bas.e.m.e.nt. She kept away from the rays of the pumpkin.

"Didn't your light go out?" asked the witch. "I was talking to the next masker but I saw no light for a moment through the crack by the curtain."

"Yes, but--there was a match there--so I--well, I looked in the mirror all right and, of course, I saw my true love!"

"Fine," said the girl to test her luck next. "Hurry up and give me a match, please. That whole bunch that's bobbing for apples is coming here next."

Betty was glad that there was opportunity for no more questioning, such as "where did the match come from?" Why, what a funny time! The Pirate of Penzance was n.o.body she had ever seen before. He must be some friend of Marcella's who knew all about the place, bas.e.m.e.nt and all. And wasn't it nice of him to do that? He was quite clear that he wasn't her "true love," though he looked older, older than Ted even, and perhaps he was engaged to somebody. Of course! He was some University student, engaged to some senior who was here. No, if she had been here, he wouldn't have paid so much attention to Betty and danced with her so much. Well, then, he was just helping Marcella with her party and having a lot of fun on the side.

By this time Betty was used to mingling with the unknown, guessing at who they were and joking with any one at all as it happened. She thought she knew a few of the juniors, whom she had known as soph.o.m.ores last year. Then there was some of her own cla.s.s she was pretty sure, boys that would be invited to equalize the numbers of boys and girls, and she knew what girls of her cla.s.s had been invited. Size, however, was no help, for even if juniors were supposed to be older and to be still "growing," some of the juniors were shorter than some of the soph.o.m.ores.

Carolyn Gwynne was going up from the bas.e.m.e.nt as Betty reached the stairs. "Oh, Betty, I mean t.i.tania," she cried, lowering her voice. "I guess n.o.body heard that. Excuse me. Did you go in to look in the mirror and did they have the big mirror up then?"

"No. I mean I went in to see my true love in a gla.s.s, but I was given a little hand mirror."

"Well, when I went in they had a square mirror propped on a sort of ledge in front of me. But the next girl had just gotten inside when she dropped her candle and squealed terribly and I suppose she reached out to grab something and down came the mirror and smashed like everything!

"She came out all scared to pieces and the witch started to tell her it was bad luck all in fun, but the girl cried and Marcella came running to tell her that the mirror didn't matter and there wasn't any such thing as good and bad luck really."

"Which girl was it?"

"She took off her mask, but I didn't know her. It was some junior girl, I think. Marcella took her upstairs. Why, she is in a colonial costume, Martha Was.h.i.+ngton or Dolly Madison or something like that."

"I don't believe Martha and Dolly would dress alike, Carolyn," laughed Betty. "Let's go and sit down somewhere. I think the orchestra's going to play again. So many of the crowd have come up from 'witchdom' now. It was sort of spooky downstairs, but such fun."

"Wasn't it. Did you see anything in your mirror, Betty?"

"Oh, of course," laughed Betty, who wasn't going to tell. Not even Carolyn, or Kathryn were to know about that little interchange between t.i.tania, queen of the fairies, and a Pirate of Penzance!

Betty was conscious of some inward excitement later, when the little orchestra played familiar and lively tunes and the invitation to supper was given. What exclamations and little squeals and giggles and happy laughter there were when the unmasking took place at the tables.

"I knew all the time it was you!"