“Fudge! I tried that last Hallowe’en, when I visited over in Nichols, but nothing came of it!”
“Then you must be cut out for an old maid,” laughingly.
“No more than you, miss. Indeed, I believe I shall be the first one married!” retorted Patty tartly, adding: “So Eva is going to try the charm, too? Well, I only wish we could get up some joke on her, so that she might have to sup with a perfect fright!”
“Some horrid old thing like Doctor Binks, with a bald head and toothless gums, and a hooked nose a yard long! She would die of chagrin, thinking she had to marry such a beast!”
“Perhaps we could manage to send Doctor Binks there! What a capital joke that would be! We owe her something, Lydia, for getting ahead of us with that anonymous lover, and the airs she is taking over us. Come, let us put our wits together and do it.”
They laughed in malice, and when they saw Eva cantering up to the gate on Firefly they laughed again with dangerous significance, little dreaming they were plotting a tragedy that was to recoil with fearful force on their own hearts.
But they were right about Eva. She was indeed fasting to try her fortune that night, dear little romantic girl.
And with her healthy, girlish appetite, she could scarcely refrain from devouring the plates of dainties she placed on the little white-covered table beside her bed. But she bravely abstained, and, going to her window, drew back the white, ruffled curtain, and gazed long and thoughtfully out upon the clear moonlight night, with the light fog rising from the river and wrapping the bases of the mountains in impenetrable mist.
In his room across the hall Gran’ther Groves had already retired, with the little bell by his side to summon Eva if he felt any sudden stroke of illness. He had sat up later than usual, because they were expecting Terry to come home to spend Hallowe’en, but the train was hours and hours late, so he retired at last, disappointed.
“How I hate Terry! I wonder why it is I’ve always hated him, when he is not such a bad fellow, after all, and my cousin, at that?” mused Eva, as she lay down in bed after her little evening prayer, and cuddled down under the warm blankets and snow-white spread, until only the top of her golden, curly head was visible in the glow of her small night lamp.