Judging from previous years' experience we thought it best, last night, to have an early dinner to prepare ourselves for the yearly front-door onslaught of exuberant children out to collect Halloween treats.

When we first moved to this neighbourhood we could anticipate having at least a hundred children ring the doorbell and themselves chime lustily "trick or treat!" Then moving off in a cloud of colourfully dressed characters to the next house to enable them to fill their various bags with edible goodies.

In the past several years that hundred has steadily been reduced to 60, or 50 children of all ages coming around as those originally moved in as infants matured and the yearly ritual was left behind. We've seen parents, themselves dressed in costume, herding their toddlers before them, shy and hesitant, prodded to say something - at the very least, "thank you", when they'd achieved their goal. And we've seen single children boldly step forward on their own as well as brothers and sisters guiding their younger siblings through the yearly ritual.

Traditionally, it has been my husband who sits there, awaiting the doorbell. And it is the smaller of our two poodles who habitually reacts, barking furiously, then sniffing at the amused children; amused because of our dog's minuscule presence.

Last night, among so many other groups and singles, three teen-age girls came along, dressed in the costumes they saw fit to wear, unable to disguise their having been geared up to have a good time, an evening of fun together in the obvious company of best friends. Unlike boys of a like age who tend to be wordlessly sullen as they stand on the front stoop, these three, like most girls, were happily giggly, a pleasure to encounter.

They were curious about our house, the stained glass windows that my husband had produced and installed. I informed them what an earlier visitor, a knee-high little boy had remarked upon: after having lisped that he liked our house, he then cocked his head and asked directly "are you rich?"