n footsteps in the snow behind, and for some
hundreds of yards she traced them; then they began to get fainter and
fainter, and presently they were hidden entirely by the new-fallen
flakes. The road was completely obliterated, there was nothing round
her but shapeless indefinite whiteness. Then it dawned upon Gwen's
soul that she was lost, lost hopelessly on the bare wold, where she
might wander for miles without seeing the gleam of a farmhouse window
or hearing even the bark of a shepherd's dog. The solitude that before
had seemed so inspiring, suddenly became oppressive loneliness. What
was she to do? Tramp on and on, perhaps in a circle, till she could go
no farther? Already it was heavy walking, and under the rocks and
bushes the drifts were deepening. Yet it would never do to sit down in
the snow. Tired as she was, she must keep moving, and while the
faintest gleam of daylight lasted she must try and find some
guide-post to civilization.

"I wish I'd brought Jingles. I never thought of him," she sighed,
longing regretfully for the shaggy Irish terrier that acted watchdog
at the Parsonage. "I wonder how soon they'll miss me at home? Not till
tea-time, I expect, and then they'll probably think I'm at the
Chambers'. Beatrice would guess where I'd gone. How furiously angry
she'll be!"

For the first time a little awkward uncomfortable inward suggestion
began to croak that elder sisters are occasionally right, and may
even be wiser in their generation than tall girls who have entered the
Fifth. Gwen's cough, which had been hacking all day, came on much
worse, and began to hurt her chest: she wished she had brought her
_thick_ muffler. It was a subject of perennial dispute between herself
and Beatrice, and she often discarded it simply because the latter
told her to put it on. She hated to appear mollycoddlish, and
sometimes indeed did very silly things out of sheer foolhardiness. At
present she was bitterly cold. The snow had sifted inside her
galoshes, and made her feet wet, and the chilly wind was creeping down
her neck and up her sleeves, and whirling frozen flakes at her face.
No cheery tea in the Chambers' drawing-room, and no delightful chat
with Dick afterwards about photography and magic lanterns.

"The fact of the matter is that I've been an idiot!" she confessed to
herself. "Anybody with an ounce of sense would have known it was too
snowy to cross the wold. I ought to have gone round by the high road.
I se