"Now, then, my blindfolded friends," said Roger, "Grandfather tells me that it is the custom in Scotland where fairies and witches are very abundant, for the ceremony that we are about to perform to open every Hallowe'en party. He has it direct from Bobby Burns."
"Then it's right," came a smothered voice from beneath James' bandage.
"James is of Scottish descent and he confirms this statement, so we can go ahead and be perfectly sure that we're doing the correct thing. Of course, we all want to know the future and particularly whatever we can about the person we're going to marry, so that's what we're going to try to find out at the very start off."
"Take off my bandage," cried Dicky. "I know the perthon I'm going to marry."
A shout of laughter greeted this assertion from the six-year-old.
"Who is it, Dicky?" asked Helen, her arm around his shoulders.
"I'm going to marry Mary," he asserted stoutly.
There was a renewed peal at this, and Roger went on with his instructions.
"I'll lead you two by two to the kitchen door and then you'll go down the flight of steps and straight ahead for anywhere from ten to twenty steps. That will land you right in the middle of what the frost has left of the Morton garden. When you get there you'll 'pull kale'."
"Meaning?" inquired George Foster.