made to snow in-doors there.

"Oh, it isn't crowded enough here," the young man explained who had
alleged the scientific marvel.

"And it isn't Boston," Miss Macroyd tried again on the same string, and
this time she got her laugh.

The girl who had first spoken remained, at the risk of pneumonia, with
her arm prettily lifted against the open sash, for a moment peering out,
and then reported, in dashing it down with a shiver, "It seems to be a
very soft snow."

"Then it will be rain by morning," another predicted, and the girl tried
hard to think of something to say in support of the hit she had made
already. But she could not, and was silent almost through the whole
first course at dinner.

In spite of its being a soft snow, it continued to fall as snow and not
as rain. It lent the charm of stormy cold without to the brightness and
warmth within. Much later, when between waltzes some of the dancers went
out on the verandas for a breath of air, they came back reporting that
the wind was rising and the snow was drifting.

Upon the whole, the snow was a great success, and her guests
congratulated Mrs. Westangle on having thought to have it. The
felicitations included recognition of the originality of her whole
scheme. She had downed the hoary superstition that people had too much
of a good time on Christmas to want any good time at all in the week
following; and in acting upon the well-known fact that you never wanted
a holiday so much as the day after you had one, she had made a movement
of the highest social importance. These were the ideas which Verrian and
the young man of the in-doors snow-storm urged upon her; his name was
Bushwick, and he and Verrian found that they were very good-fellows
after they had rather supposed the contrary.

Mrs. Westangle received their ideas with the twittering reticence that
deceived so many people when they supposed she knew what they were
talking about.

XII.

At breakfast, where the guests were reasonably punctual, they were all
able to observe, in the rapid succession in which they descended
from their rooms, that it had stopped snowing and the sun was shining
brilliantly.

"There isn't enough for sleighing," Mrs. Westangle proclaimed from the
head of the table in her high twitter, "and there isn't any coasting
here in this flat country for miles."

"Then what are we going to do with it?" one of the young ladies
humorously pouted.

"That's what I was going to s