tern
light. The drifts along the edges of the meadows and down the lane
looked as if a series of breaking waves had, by the lifting of a
magician's wand, been suddenly transformed into marble, even to their
toppling curls of foam.

Slowly the splendour died, giving place to the mystic beauty of a winter
twilight when the moon is rising. The hollow sky was a cup of blue. The
stars came out over the white glens and the earth was covered with a
kingly carpet for the feet of the young year to press.

"I'm so glad the snow came," said the Story Girl. "If it hadn't the New
Year would have seemed just as dingy and worn out as the old. There's
something very solemn about the idea of a New Year, isn't there? Just
think of three hundred and sixty-five whole days, with not a thing
happened in them yet."

"I don't suppose anything very wonderful will happen in them," said
Felix pessimistically. To Felix, just then, life was flat, stale and
unprofitable because it was his turn to go home with Sara Ray.

"It makes me a little frightened to think of all that may happen in
them," said Cecily. "Miss Marwood says it is what we put into a year,
not what we get out of it, that counts at last."

"I'm always glad to see a New Year," said the Story Girl. "I wish we
could do as they do in Norway. The whole family sits up until midnight,
and then, just as the clock is striking twelve, the father opens the
door and welcomes the New Year in. Isn't it a pretty custom?"

"If ma would let us stay up till twelve we might do that too," said Dan,
"but she never will. I call it mean."

"If I ever have children I'll let them stay up to watch the New Year
in," said the Story Girl decidedly.

"So will I," said Peter, "but other nights they'll have to go to bed at
seven."

"You ought to be ashamed, speaking of such things," said Felicity, with
a scandalized face.

Peter shrank into the background abashed, no doubt believing that he had
broken some Family Guide precept all to pieces.

"I didn't know it wasn't proper to mention children," he muttered
apologetically.

"We ought to make some New Year resolutions," suggested the Story Girl.
"New Year's Eve is the time to make them."

"I can't think of any resolutions I want to make," said Felicity, who
was perfectly satisfied with herself.

"I could suggest a few to you," said Dan sarcastically.

"There are so many I would like to make," said Cecily, "that I'm afraid
it wouldn't be any use tr