Tree branches in the forest broke under the weight
of snow. Sometimes she lay awake in the night and heard the frost burst
great trees as though a stick of dynamite had been set off inside them.

The lake ice became so thick that the steamboat could no longer make her
trips. Walky Dexter became mail carrier and brought the mail from
Middletown every other day.

Janice found the time not at all tedious in its flight. There really was
so much to do!

As for real _fun_--winter sports had been little more than a name to the
girl from the Middle West before this winter. The boys had got their
bob-sleds out before Thanksgiving. Toboggans were not popular in
Poketown, for the coasting-places were too rough. At first Janice was
really afraid to join the hilarious parties of boys and girls on some of
the slides.

Marty, however, owned a big sled, and she did not want her cousin to
lose his good opinion of her. He had declared that she was almost as
good as a boy, and Janice successfully hid from him her fear of the
sport that really is a royal one.

A favorite slide of the Poketown young people was from the head of the
street on which Hopewell Drugg's store was located, down the hill, past
the decayed dock on which Janice had first seen little Lottie Drugg, and
on across the frozen inlet to the wooded point in which Lottie declared
the echo dwelt.

When the whole lake froze solidly, the course of the sleds was continued
across its level surface as far as the momentum from the hill would
carry the bobs. There was skating here, too; and many were the moonlight
nights on which a regular carnival was held at the foot of these hilly
streets.

Walky Dexter owned a great sledge, too, and when he attached two span of
horses to this, and the roads were even half broken, he could drive
parties of Poketown young people all over the county, on moonlight
sleigh-rides. Janice was invited to go on several of these, and she did
so. Her heart was not always attuned to the hilarity of her companions;
but she did not allow herself to become morose, or sad, in public.

Yet the gnawing worriment about her father was in her mind continually.
It was an effort for her to be lively and cheerful when the fate of Mr.
Broxton Day was so uncertain.

Her more thoughtful comrades realized the girl's secret feelings. She
was treated with more consideration by the rough boys who were Marty's
mates, than were the other girls.

"Say, that Janice girl