other cases, they
accepted the hands of the late enemy at difficult points of the path.
But they ran forward when they neared the house, and they were prompt to
scream upon Mrs. Westangle that there never had been such a success or
such fun, and that they were almost dead, and soon as they had something
to eat they were going to bed and never going to get up again.

In the details which they were able to give at luncheon, they did
justice to Verrian's noble part in the whole affair, which had saved the
day, not only in keeping them up to the work when they had got thinking
it couldn't be carried through, but in giving the combat a validity
which it would not have had without him. They had to thank him, next
to Mrs. Westangle herself, whom they praised beyond any articulate
expression, for thinking up such a delightful thing. They wondered how
she could ever have thought of it--such a simple thing too; and they
were sure that when people heard of it they would all be wanting to have
snow battles.

Mrs. Westangle took her praises as passively, if not as modestly, as
Verrian received his. She made no show of disclaiming them, but she had
the art, invaluable in a woman who meant to go far in the line she had
chosen, of not seeming to have done anything, or of not caring whether
people liked it or not. Verrian asked himself, as he watched her
twittering back at those girls, and shedding equally their thanks and
praises from her impermeable plumage, how she would have behaved if Miss
Shirley's attempt had been an entire failure. He decided that she would
have ignored the failure with the same impersonality as that with which
she now ignored the success. It appeared that in one point he did her
injustice, for when he went up to dress for dinner after the long stroll
he took towards night he found a note under his door, by which he must
infer that Mrs. Westangle had not kept the real facts of her triumph
from the mistress of the revels.

"DEAR MR. VERRIAN, I am not likely to see you, but I must
thank you.
"M. SHIRLEY.

"P. S. Don't try to answer, please."

Verrian liked, the note, he even liked the impulse which had dictated
it, and he understood the impulse; but he did not like getting the note.
If Miss Shirley meant business in taking up the line of life she had
professed to have entered upon seriously, she had better, in the case
of a young man whose acquaintance she had chanced to m