ery jaunty, indeed. He told of the girls' arrival to
a boy who was toiling up the edge of the packed and icy slide. Walter
Mason had been to the bottom of the hill to make sure that no obstacle
had fallen upon the track since the previous day.

"Walter! Hello, Walter!" was the chorused shout of the leading group of
girls, as the boy reached the elevation where the professor stood.

One of the girls ran to meet him, her cheeks aglow, her lips smiling, and
her brown eyes dancing. She looked so much like the boy that there could
be no doubt of their relationship.

"Hello, Grace!" Walter called to his sister, in response.

But his gaze went past the chubby figure of his shy sister to another
girl who, with her chum, was in the lead of the four tugging at the
rope of the gaily painted bobsled. This particular girl's bright and
animated countenance smiled back at Walter cordially, and she waved a
mittened hand.

"Hi, Walter!" she called.

"Hi, Nan!" was his reply.

The others he welcomed with a genial hail. Bess Harley, who toiled along
beside her chum, said with a flashing smile and an imp-light of
naughtiness in either black eye:

"You and Walter Mason are just as thick as leaves on a mulberry tree, Nan
Sherwood! I saw you whispering together the other day when Walter came
with his cutter to take Grace for a ride. Is he going to take you for a
spin behind that jolly black horse of his?"

"No, honey," replied Nan, placidly. "And I wouldn't go without you, you
know very well."

"Oh! wouldn't you, Nan? Not even with Walter?"

"Certainly not!" cried Nan Sherwood, big-eyed at the suggestion.

"Only because Dr. Beulah wouldn't hear of such an escapade, I guess,"
said the wicked Bess, laughing.

"Now! just for that," Nan declared, pretending to be angry, "I won't tell
you--yet--what we were talking about."

"You and Walter?"

"Walter and I--yes."

"Secrets from your chum, Nan! You're always having something on the side
that you don't tell me," pouted Bess.

"Nonsense! Don't you know Christmas is coming and everybody has secrets
this time of year?"

"Hurry up, girls!" commanded the red-haired girl who was helping pull on
the rope directly behind the chums. "I'm walking on your heels. It will
be night before we get on the slide."

"We're in the lead," Bess flared back. "Don't be afraid, Laura."

"That may be," said Laura Polk, "but I don't want Linda Riggs and her
crowd right on top of us. They're so mean.