“You are a boarding pupil here, aren’t you?” said Patty. “Do you know anything about the plans for a Hallowe’en party?”
“No,” said Hilda, “except that there’s going to be one. I fancy it will be just like last year’s party.”
“Are they nice? What do you do at them?”
“Yes, they’re rather good fun. We bob for apples, and go downstairs backward, and sail nut-shell boats, and all those things.”
Patty said nothing further about Miss Oliphant’s part in it, as she thought perhaps it was a secret.
“You must have real good times living here,” she went on; “so many of you girls all together.”
“Yes, it’s not so very horrid; though it’s very unlike an English boarding school. American girls are so enthusiastic.”
“Yes, we are; but I like that, don’t you?”
“Oh, if one has anything to be excited over, it’s all very well; but you waste such a lot of enthusiasm that, when anything comes along really worth while, you have no words left to show your appreciation of it.”
“Oh, I have,” said Patty, laughing. “Or if I haven’t, I use the same words over again. They don’t wear out, you know.”