r to the glowing coal stove
in the center of the room as he dared, while Bill studied the
age-stained menu over the lunch counter.

"My treat," he said, as he drew a bright half-dollar from his pocket.
"What'll you have?"

John ordered his favorite, mince pie; his host, a cut of half-baked
apple. They washed the food down with a glass of cider apiece, and
stumbled out on the board walk toward home.

"Feel's funny, walking after you've had skates on," John commented as
they trudged along the dark path. Silvey spoke up, "Say, John."

"Yes?"

"You know Sid DuPree?"

He nodded.

"Well, he's trying to cut you out with Louise. Saw her in the corner
drug store with him, drinking ice cream sodas."

John's foot caught in a piece of loosened turf at the edge of the gravel
walk. Otherwise, he gave no sign that he had heard.

"Aren't mad because I told you, are you?"

"No."

His paper route had kept him too busy to give the attention due her, but
if Louise were inclined to succumb to the blandishments of ten-cent
sodas at a drug store, he was glad to know it. Such incidents might
result in disaster for the great plan if allowed to run unhindered.

"Feel's like a thaw," said Bill, trying to rouse his chum from the
revery into which his announcement had plunged him.

Again John nodded. Indeed there was a curious softness in the air.
Perhaps the promise of a long skating season was to prove false after
all. But he must see Louise, the very moment of her return. Then Sid had
better watch out.

He was at his front steps before he realized it.

"Good night," called Silvey, as he turned for home.

"Good night," replied John a trifle wearily. And with the same feeling
of morose taciturnity, a strange mood on this of all nights, he
undressed and crept into bed.

CHAPTER XII

IN WHICH THE PATH OF TRUE LOVE DOES NOT RUN SMOOTHLY

But the softness in the Christmas air did not presage a thaw. When Mrs.
Fletcher closed the windows in her son's room the following morning, and
laid her hand on his motionless shoulder, she awakened him with a
greeting of, "Come, son, look out and see what's happened."

Snow! A veil of fine, driving flakes scurried groundward with each gust
of wind from the lake and half hid the passenger-laden suburban trains,
and the ramshackle dairy buildings across the tracks. Already the
cinder-laden railroad embankment was covered with a white mantle, too
new as yet to be anything but spotles