ating these two. Annie never by the slightest hint
let her know her real feelings. And herein lay the great misfortune of
Miss Gordon's life. She loved the girl passionately, and would have
made any sacrifice she felt was for her good, but Annie lived by her
side day after day, and gave her not the smallest confidence. Her
aunt, in her mistaken worldly ambition, had forever shut between them
the door of true companionship.

They were all ready, in various stages of excitement, when the
MacAllister sleigh came jingling up to the door. In the winter,
sleighs generally took the sawlog road along the short-cut to Forest
Glen, and the Wully Johnstones had promised to come round that way,
too, and pick up anybody who was left.

To Elizabeth, this driving abroad after nightfall was like taking a
voyage to a new planet. It was so wonderful and mysterious, this new,
white, moon-lit world. Away in the vast blue dome the stars smiled
faintly, outshone by the glory of the big, round moon that rode high
above the black tree-tops. The billowing drifts along the road blazed
under a veil of diamonds, and the strip of ice on the pond, where
Elizabeth and John had swept away the snow for a slide, shone like
polished silver. The fields melted away gray and mysterious into the
darkness of the woods. Here and there a light twinkled from the
farm-houses of the valley. The sleigh-bells jingled merrily, and the
company joined their own joyous notes to them and sang the songs that
were to be given at the concert. The woods rang with their gay voices
as they passed old Sandy McLachlan's place. Sandy still held
possession, and was looking forward hopefully to some providential
interference in the springtime.

The old man and Eppie were plunging down the snowy lane. The horses
were pulled up and they were hauled joyously aboard; and in a few
minutes the happy sleighload dashed up to the schoolhouse, which stood
there looking twice its usual size and importance, with the light
blazing from every window.

CHAPTER IX

THE FAIRY GOD-MOTHER ARRIVES

They found the schoolhouse already rapidly filling. To Elizabeth, the
little room presented a scene of dazzling splendor. The place was
indeed transformed. It was decorated with festoons of evergreens and
wreaths of paper flowers; and lamps twinkled from every window-sill.
Across the platform was stretched a white curtain, constructed from
Mrs. Robertson's and Mrs. Clegg's she