rue," said Margaret. "I will go if Sophia will go with me."

"There is no use in asking any of them," said Sydney. "They stand
dawdling and looking, till their lips and noses are all blue and red,
and they are never up to any fun."

"I will try as far as that pole first," said Margaret. "I should not
care if they had not swept away all the snow here, so as to make the ice
look so grey and slippery."

"That pole!" said Sydney. "Why, that pole is put up on purpose to show
that you must not go there. Don't you see how the ice is broken all
round it? Oh, I know how it is that you are so stupid and cowardly
to-day. You've lived in Birmingham all your winters, and you've never
been used to walk on the ice."

"I am glad you have found that out at last. Now, look--I am really
going. What a horrid sensation!" she cried, as she cautiously put down
one foot before the other on the transparent floor. She did better when
she reached the middle of the river, where the ice had been ground by
the skates.

"Now, you would get on beautifully," said Sydney, "if you would not look
at your feet. Why can't you look at the people, and the trees
opposite?"

"Suppose I should step into a hole."

"There are no holes. Trust me for the holes. What do you flinch so
for? The ice always cracks so, in one part or another. I thought you
had been shot."

"So did I," said she, laughing. "But, Sydney, we are a long way from
both banks."

"To be sure: that is what we came for."

Margaret looked somewhat timidly about her. An indistinct idea flitted
through her mind--how glad she should be to be accidentally, innocently
drowned; and scarcely recognising it, she proceeded.

"You get on well," shouted Mr Hope, as he flew past, on his return up
the river.

"There, now," said Sydney, presently; "it is a very little way to the
bank. I will just take a trip up and down, and come for you again, to
go back; and then we will try whether we can't get cousin Hester over,
when she sees you have been safe there and back."

This was a sight which Hester was not destined to behold. Margaret had
an ignorant partiality for the ice which was the least grey; and, when
left to herself, she made for a part which looked less like glass.
Nobody particularly heeded her. She slipped, and recovered herself: she
slipped again, and fell, hearing the ice crack under her. Every time
she attempted to rise, she found the place too slippery to keep her