sent the chips of ice
flying from under his heel. "Don't let's go home just yet, 't won't be
dark for an hour anyway, and we can go up in fifteen minutes. I'll race
you over to the other side and back again, Howard, while the girls are
getting their breath."

"You don't mind being left, Allie?" And the taller boy glanced at the
girls.

"All right, just for once," said Allie; "then we really ought to go up,
Howard; mamma wants us to be home in good season to-night, for dinner is
going to be early, so papa can get the train down."

"Is your father going away again?" asked Marjorie, as the girls skated
idly to and fro, waiting for the boys to join them. "I thought he came
in from camp only this morning."

"So he did," answered her friend, burying her small nose in her muff for
a moment, as she faced the cutting wind. "He's only going down to
Pocatello to-night, and out on the main line a little ways, to meet
Charlie MacGregor, our cousin that's coming."

"Yes," nodded Marjorie, in acquiescence; "I remember now; I'd forgotten
he was coming so soon. What fun you'll have with him, Allie! I wish I
had a brother, or cousin, or something."

"Perhaps I shall wish I didn't have both," said Allie, laughing. "I
don't know how he and Howard will get on. I think Howard doesn't want
him much; but I'd just as soon he'd be here."

"What's he like?" queried Marjorie curiously.

"I haven't much idea; I've never seen him," said Allie. "Papa saw him
when he was east last summer, and we have a picture of him taken ever so
long ago."

"Who's that--Charlie MacGregor?" asked Howard, skating up to them at
that moment. "He's not much to look at, Marjorie, if his picture's any
good. He has a pug nose and wears giglamps, and I've a suspicion that
he's a fearful dude. He'll be a tenderfoot, of course, but he'll get
over that; but if he's a dude, we boys will make it lively for him."

"Howard, you sha'n't!" remonstrated his sister, loyally coming to the
defence of their unknown cousin. "It must be horrid for him to lose all
his friends and have to be sent out here to relations he doesn't know
nor care anything about, just like a barrel of flour." Allie's metaphors
were becoming mixed; but she never heeded that, as she went on proudly:
"And besides, we're MacGregors as much as he is, and mamma says that no
MacGregor was ever rude to a cousin, or to anybody in trouble."

"Good for you, Allie!" shouted the younger boy, as he stopped in the