."

With a laughing word to Billy, they swept off up the pond, while the ice
rang hard under their long, swinging strokes. Archie led; but Hope and
Theodora were close behind him when he reached the old pine-tree. As
they turned to face the sheet of silver light reflected back from the
surface of the ice, Theodora gasped with the beauty of it all, and with
the tense physical excitement of the moment. For one instant, she seemed
possessed with the glorious madness of living, with the splendor of the
night, with the cold, sharp air and the exhilaration of the exercise.
The next moment, as she mustered all her strength to pass Archie, she
saw him stagger and fall. He had skated on a half-buried stick, and the
sudden check to his progress had thrown him headlong on the ice.

There was an instantaneous hush, when it seemed to Theodora that all the
glory had died out of the universe. When she regained her scattered
senses, Hubert had whirled Billy up to the spot, while Hope, quiet and
dainty as ever, but a shade paler than usual, sat on the ice with
Archie's head resting in her lap and her handkerchief pressed against
the cut in his forehead.

"Be quiet, Teddy," she said gently. "Archie isn't dead, dear. I think
it has only stunned him a little."

With a gasp of shame, Theodora realized that she had been crying aloud
in her excitement, while the blurred scratches on the ice showed that
she had been flying about the group in a futile distraction. With a
groan of self-disgust, she dropped down on the footboard of Billy's
chair.

"I didn't mean to," she said contritely. "How can you always know just
what to do, Hope? I wish I didn't act like an ape, whenever I'm
frightened. But do you think he's much hurt?"

Archie answered the question by opening his eyes. He looked up at Hope
for a minute, first in wonder at his position, then with an expression
of infinite content, as he saw her pretty face bent over him and read
the anxiety in her eyes. Then his own eyes grew merry, as he glanced at
the tearful, dishevelled Theodora.

"I'm not dead yet," he said. "You came near beating me; but you haven't
done it yet, my fair niece." He tried to rise as he spoke.

Hope's hand on his forehead grew a shade heavier.

"Wait a little," she said. "You've cut yourself, and I want it to stop
bleeding, first. Aren't you comfortable?"

For a second time, Archie looked up into her eyes.

"Perfectly," he answered briefly.

The pause which