. Then, twanging
her mandolin, she burst out with all her power into a gay Christmas
carol. High and sweet sang her voice in the silent corridor all through
the gay carol. Then, sweeter still, it changed into a Christmas hymn.
Then from behind the closed doors sounded voices:

"Merry Christmas, Betty Luther!"

Then Constance O'Neill's deep, smooth alto flowed into Betty's soprano;
and at the last all nine girls joined in "Adeste Fideles." Christmas
morning began with music and laughter.

"This is your place, Betty. You are lord of Christmas morning."

Betty stood, blushing, red as the holly in her hand, before the
breakfast table. Miss Hyle, the teacher at the head of the table, had
given up her place.

The breakfast was a merry one. After it somebody suggested that they all
go skating on the pond.

Betty hesitated and glanced at Miss Hyle and Miss Thrasher, the two
sad-looking teachers.

She approached them and said, "Won't you come skating, too?"

Miss Thrasher, hardly older than Betty herself, and pretty in a white
frightened way, refused, but almost cheerfully. "I have a Christmas box
to open and Christmas letters to write. Thank you very much."

Betty's heart sank as she saw Miss Hyle's face. "Goodness, she's
coming!"

Miss Hyle was the most unpopular teacher in school. Neither ill-tempered
nor harsh, she was so cold, remote and rigid in face, voice, and manner
that the warmest blooded shivered away from her, the least sensitive
shrank.

"I have no skates, but I should like to borrow a pair to learn, if I
may. I have never tried," she said.

The tragedies of a beginner on skates are to the observers, especially
if such be school-girls, subjects for unalloyed mirth. The nine girls
choked and turned their backs and even giggled aloud as Miss Hyle went
prone, now backward with a whack, now forward in a limp crumple.

But amusement became admiration. Miss Hyle stumbled, fell, laughed
merrily, scrambled up, struck out, and skated. Presently she was
swinging up the pond in stroke with Betty and Eleanor O'Neill.

"Miss Hyle, you're great!" cried Betty, at the end of the morning. "I've
taught dozens and scores to skate, but never anybody like you. You've a
genius for skating."

Miss Hyle's blue eyes shot a sudden flash at Betty that made her whole
severe face light up. "I've never had a chance to learn--at home there
never is any ice--but I have always been athletic."

"Where is your home, Miss Hyle?"