Barbara into the dining-room.

"This is the Snap," she said, unfastening the cover, and producing
from within a paper parcel. "And that," holding up a little white
bottle, "is the Dragon." And Barbara set all away in the dresser until
after supper. Then we got together, without further ceremony, in the
brown room.

We hung wedding-rings--we had mother's, and Miss Elizabeth had brought
over Madam Pennington's--by hairs, and held them inside tumblers; and
they vibrated with our quickening pulses, and swung and swung, until
they rung out fairy chimes of destiny against the sides. We floated
needles in a great basin of water, and gave them names, and watched
them turn and swim and draw together,--some point to point, some heads
and points, some joined cosily side to side, while some drifted to the
margin and clung there all alone, and some got tears in their eyes, or
an interfering jostle, and went down. We melted lead and poured it
into water; and it took strange shapes; of spears and masts and stars;
and some all went to money; and one was a queer little bottle and
pills, and one was pencils and artists' tubes, and--really--a little
palette with a hole in it.

[Illustration]

And then came the chestnut-roasting, before the bright red coals. Each
girl put down a pair; and I dare say most of them put down some little
secret, girlish thought with it. The ripest nuts burned steadiest and
surest, of course; but how could we tell these until we tried? Some
little crack, or unseen worm-hole, would keep one still, while its
companion would pop off, away from it; some would take flight