"I should say so!" exclaimed Margery. "Jane McCarthy, you certainly know how to make molasses candy."
"Thank you." Jane's cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkled with excitement. She never was so happy as when leading, no matter whether it were in making candy or racing with a motor car.
The candy pull was a great success, the ropes of sweet stuff being thrown over low-hanging limbs where the candy was pulled and pulled amid much laughter and many shouts. Several trees were used for the purpose. The candy pull being finished all the girls gathered about the fire, sitting down Turk fashion.
"The little ghost will now appear among you and relate some live stories from ghostland," announced Crazy Jane.
A slender white figure stepped from behind a tree so quickly as to bring little screams of alarm from several girls. The figure was dressed in white with a white mask covering her face. Some of the girls recognized Harriet Burrell, but the majority did not. They did, however, shout with laughter when a second ghost, the assistant to the first tripped out from behind another tree with a little chirp that was distinctly unghostly.
"Hello, girlth," she piped.
The second ghost's usefulness was thereupon ended for the evening. The girls grabbed and unmasked her. Harriet raised a wand, in this case a burning fagot.
"Maidens fair," she began in a deep impressive voice. "Do you know what a banshee is?"
"I know," cried Hazel. "A banshee is a ghost, that the peasants in Ireland believe in. It stands outside their windows at night and wails dismally. Its appearance is supposed to foretell the death of a member of the family."
"Quite right," replied Harriet. "Now listen to my story. Once upon a time there lived a family of poor people in County Mooreland in Ireland. With them lived their beautiful child Muriel. Now the fairies and the banshees, the wood nymphs and the sprites coveted this beautiful child Muriel because they knew she would make a good fairy. But they dared not approach the hut where Muriel made her home, in the daytime. At night little Muriel was sound asleep behind closed doors. There was no way for the banshees and the wood nymphs and the sprites to get into the house and take her while she slept, for there always was a fire in the fireplace. As everybody knows a fairy cannot pass through flames without singeing her wings——"