“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, Titania!”
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 basement. 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.”