rush into my arms, something did rush into my arms, but I'll leave it to the opinion of the meeting whether this can be my future bride!" and he held at arm's length by the coat collar the laughing, squirming figure of George Foster.

It was unanimously agreed that George did not have the appearance of a bride, and then they went back to the hall to bob for apples. Roger spread a rubber blanket on the floor and drew the tub from its hiding place in the corner where it had been waiting its turn in the games.

While the boys were making these arrangements Dorothy and Helen were busily trying to dispose of the two ends of the same string which stretched from one mouth to the other with a tempting raisin tied in the middle to encourage them to effort. It was forbidden to use the hands and tongues proved not always reliable. Now Dorothy seemed ahead, now Helen. Finally the victory seemed about to be Helen's, when she laughed and lost several inches of string and Dorothy triumphantly devoured the prize.

When the girls turned to see what the boys were doing, Gregory and James were already bobbing for apples. One knelt at one side of the tub and the other at the other, and each had his eye, when it was not full of water, fixed on one of the apples that were bouncing busily about on the waves caused by their own motions.

"I speak for the red one," gasped Gregory.

"All right! I'll go for the greening," agreed James, and they puffed and sputtered, and were quite unable to fix their teeth in the sides of the slippery fruit until James drove his head right down to the bottom of the tub where he fastened upon the apple and came up dripping, but triumphant.

Stimulated by the applause that greeted James, Tom and Roger tossed in two apples and began a new contest.

"This isn't a girls' game is it?" murmured Helen as Tom won his apple by the same means that James had used.

"Not unless you're willing to forget your hair," replied Dr. Watkins.

"You can't forget it when it takes so long to dry it," Helen answered. "I'm content to let the boys have this entirely to themselves."

While the half drowned boys went up to Roger's room to dry their faces the girls prepared nut boats to set sail upon the same ocean that had floated the apples. They had cracked English walnuts carefully so that the two halves fell apart neatly, and in place of the meats they had packed a candle end tightly into each.

"We have the comfort of the apple even when we're defeated," said Gregory, coming down stairs, eating the fruit that he had not been able to capture without the use of his hands. "What have you got there?"

"Here's a boat apiece," explained Helen. "We must each put a tiny flag of some sort on it so that we can tell which is which."

"This way?" George asked. "I've put a pin through a scrap of corn husk and stuck it on to the end of this craft."

"That's right. We must find something different for each one. Mine is a black-alder berry. See how red and bright it is?"

It was not hard for each to find an emblem.

"Watch me hoist the admiral's flag at the mainmast," said Roger, but the match that he set up for a mast caught fire almost as soon as the candles were lighted in the miniature fleet. His flag fell overboard, however, and was not injured.

"See that?" he commented. "That just proves that the flag of the U. S. A. can never perish," and the others greeted his words with cheers.

It was a pretty sight—the whole fleet afloat, each bit of candle burning clearly and each little craft tossing on the waves that Dr. Watkins produced by gently tipping the tub.

"This is also an attempt to gain some knowledge of the future," said Helen. "We must watch these boats and see which ones stay close together and which go far apart, and whether any of them are shipwrecked, and which ones seem to have the smoothest voyage."

"Della's and mine are sticking together just the way our nuts did," cried Ethel Blue, and she slipped her hand into Della's and gave it a little squeeze.

After the loss of its mainmast at the very beginning Roger's craft had no more mishaps. It slid alongside of James's and together they bobbed gently across life's stormy seas.

"It looks as if you and I were going into partnership, old man," James interpreted their behavior.

The other boats seemed to need no especial companionship but floated on independently, only Gregory's coming to an untimely end from a heavy wave that washed over it and capsized it.

"I seem to hear a summons from the Witches' Cave," murmured Helen in an awed whisper as a sound like the wind whistling through pine trees fell on their ears, resolving itself as they listened into the words, "Come! Come! Come!"

Quietly they arose and tiptoed their way toward the dining room. They could only enter it by penetrating the thicket of boughs that barred the door. As they came nearer the voice retreated—"Almost as if it were going into the kitchen," whispered Margaret to Tom who happened to be next to her. The only light in the room came from a pan of alcohol and salt burning greenly in a corner and casting an unnatural hue over their faces. The black cats, their eyes touched with phosphorus, glared down from the plate rail.

Again the voice was heard:—"Gather, gather about the festal board."

"We must obey the witches," urged Helen, and they sat down in the chairs which they found placed at the table in just the right number. Into the dim room from the kitchen came two figures dressed in long black capes and pointed red hats and bearing each a dish heaped high with cakes of some sort.

"I just have to tell you what these are," said Ethel Brown in her natural voice as she and Ethel Blue marched around the table and placed one dish before Roger at one end and another before Helen at the other. "It's sowens."

"Sowens? What in the world are sowens?" everybody questioned.

"Grandfather told us that Burns says that sowens eaten with butter always make the Hallowe'en supper, so we looked up in the Century Dictionary how to make them and this is the result."

"Do you think they're safe?" inquired Della.

"There's a doctor here to take care of us if anything happens," laughed James. "I'm game. Give me a chance at them."

Roger and Helen began a distribution of the cakes.

"Sowens is—or are—good," decided Dr. Watkins, tasting his cake slowly, and pronouncing judgment on it after due deliberation.

"We tried them yesterday to make sure they were eatable by Americans, and we thought they were pretty good, smoking hot, with butter on them, just as Burns directed."

"Right. They are," agreed all the boys promptly, and the girls agreed with them, though they were not quite so enthusiastic in their expression of appreciation as the boys.

Baked apples, nuts and raisins, countless cookies of various lands and hot gingerbread made an appetizing meal. As it was coming to an end Helen rapped on the table.

"Please let me pretend this is a club meeting for a minute or two instead of a party. I want to tell the people here who aren't members of the U. S. C. what it is we are trying to do."

"We know," responded George. "You're working for the Christmas Ship. Didn't I dance in your minuet?"

"We are working for the Christmas Ship, but that is only one thing that the Club does."

"What do the initials mean?" asked Gregory.

"United Service Club. You see Father is in the Navy and Uncle Richard is in the Army so we have the United Service in the family. But that is just a family pun. The real purpose of the Club is to do some service for somebody whenever we can."

"Something on the Boy Scout idea of doing a kindness