"Here are the aprons," cried Kitty, at last. "See? They'll fit up close around the neck and hide the place where the muslin that covers our head is tied on."
"I'll paint the faces on you the last thing before we start," said Allison.
"Mercy me! Allison!" exclaimed Katie. "We can't walk down past the depot and the store rigged up that way, even if it is dark. Somebody might think we were escaped freaks, and chase us. We ought to wait till we get to the seminary before we dress."
"No, there won't be time then, and everybody will know it's only a Hallowe'en frolic. If Kitty wears her golf-cape and you wear mine, and pull the hoods away over your faces, nobody will notice. I'll not dress till afterward, for I'm not going to appear till the middle of the evening. I'm not going to go up to the gymnasium at all, but just glide around on the outskirts and lay a cold finger on some one now and then. I'll get a lump of ice out of the cooler if I can manage to slip into the dining-room. Now if you'll bring me the scissors I'll cut the muslin and fit it over your heads."
Mrs. Walton, sorry that her absence would deprive the girls of their anticipated Hallowe'en party, compensated for their disappointment as far as possible by ordering an unusually delicious little supper for them and their guest.
"Isn't it too tantalizing!" exclaimed Kitty, when Barbry had left the room for some hot biscuits. "Here's everything I like best, and I'm in such a hurry and so excited that I can hardly choke down a mouthful."
"Don't talk, then," commanded Allison. "Just eat!"
The meal proceeded in silence for a few moments, but the silence itself grew funny as they thought of the ludicrous figures they would soon present, and they began to giggle.
The giggles grew into shrieks of laughter a little later, when they had gone up-stairs, and the two rag dolls, all stuffed, painted, and dressed, leaned limply against the wall and leered at each other. Even their hands looked comical, covered in white woollen gloves, each finger held stiffly out from the other. After one glance Allison rolled on the bed, holding her sides, laughing and gasping in turn.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" she exclaimed, finally, sitting up and wiping her eyes and then going off into a fresh paroxysm of laughter as she looked at them again. "I never saw anything so funny in my life. The girls will simply shriek when they see you."