accustomed position.

"Like them," echoed Bluebell; "it's just like a hearse, bar the colour,
which is frightful. I wouldn't have come if I had known I was to be
driven in such a fire-engine."

"There now," rather crest-fallen. "I chose them because you said you were
_fond_ of scarlet, otherwise I should have preferred blue, except that I
might have been taken for one of the 10th, who mount their regimental
colours on everything."

"I like the 10th," said Bluebell, perversely; "they are all good-looking
except the Adjutant, who got his nose sliced off by a Sikh, and
the.... goodness what's that?" as a fearful shout, followed by a
sudden checking of horses, brought the whole line to a stand-still.

"What's the matter?" was passed from one sleigh to another up to the
front: the return message, shouted and taken up as each one interpreted
it, became soon about as intelligible as it does in the game of Russian
scandal, and for the next few minutes everybody was conjecturing at once.

"Here's Du Meresq," cried Jack, as Bertie came ploughing through the
snow.

"Halloa, guard! what's wrong on the line?"

"Run into a goods' train," said he, keeping on his course to the
Vice-President's sleigh.

"Du Meresq never tells one anything," said Jack; "I hate a mysterious
fellow; somebody's capsized, I suppose, and he's gone for some brandy."

"Perhaps for a shovel," suggested Bluebell. "Colonel Rolleston may have
come to a drift."

"Don't see how we are to reverse our engine," replied Jack, looking each
side of the road, where the snow was piled four or five feet.

Bertie, however, had not gone for a shovel, which would have been
perfectly useless, but to explain the situation and assist in turning
round the sleighs. In front of Colonel Rolleston was a huge rampart of
snow, extending for some distance. The wind setting dead in that
direction, had drifted it across, and buried the track several feet. This
road had been clear the day before, for Bertie and Cecil had driven it to
ascertain, but the wind had changed and snow fallen during the night.

Major Fane's sleigh was successfully turned, after a great deal of
assistance to the horses, who floundered up to their shoulders; and to
this haven of refuge Du Meresq was conducting several young ladies, for
each sleigh having to turn on the spot where their progress was arrested,
a certain number of upsets was inevitable.

"Come, Miss Leigh," said a voice beneath her, "you m