a cunning snap."

"I don't care about the snap," retorted Meg, sitting up and drying her
eyes on Father's nice big white handkerchief. "The forget-me-nots were
so lovely and besides it was great Aunt Dorothy's."

Father Blossom now proposed a plan.

"I'll advertise for your locket, Meg," he said. "We'll offer a reward,
and perhaps some one will find it. At any rate, it will encourage them
to look for it. Right after supper we'll get pencil and paper and
write out an advertisement for the _Oak Hill Herald_."

Father Blossom did not really believe that offering a reward for the
lost locket would bring it back. He thought likely that it was buried
under the deep snow beyond the sight of every one. But he knew that
Meg would feel better if she thought that everything possible was being
done to recover the pretty trinket.

After supper that night they wrote an advertisement, describing the
locket, telling where it was lost, and offering ten dollars reward to
the person who should bring it back. This advertisement was printed
for three weeks in the Oak Hill paper, but though a number of people
who read it did go out and scuffle about a bit in the snow on Wayne
Place hill, partly in the hope of earning the reward, partly with a
good-natured wish to help Meg, no one found the locket. The Blossom
family were forced to conclude that it was gone forever.

The Monday afternoon following the party Meg and Bobby came rushing
home from school with great news.

"Mother! Mother!" they shouted, flinging down lunch boxes and books in
the hall and tearing upstairs like small cyclones. "Oh, Mother!"

Mother Blossom, sewing in Aunt Polly's room, looked up at them and
laughed.

"Is there a fire?" she asked calmly.

Bobby was almost out of breath, but he still had a bit left to tell the
news.

"They've swept off Blake's pond!" he gasped. "Everybody's going
skating. The ice is great, Mother. Just like glass."

"Where are our skates? Can we go?" chimed in Meg. "It isn't a bit
cold, Mother."

"Just cold enough to skate, I suppose," smiled Mother Blossom. "Well,
of course you can't miss the first skating of the season. But I don't
believe they want such little folks on the pond, dear. Some of the big
boys will be likely to skate right over you."

"We'll keep near the edge," promised Bobby. "Come on, Meg. Where are
our skates?"

Meg and Bobby had double runner skates, which are very good to learn
on, and the