unners, "isn't this just
the nicest ride thee ever took? Isn't thee having just the best time?"

"Yes," answered the youth so briefly that her face clouded. Fairfax
was once more enveloped in his garb of bashfulness, and attended
strictly to the driving, letting the task of entertaining their guests
fall upon his mother.

"I do believe that he is feeling bad because Betty hath not come,"
pouted Sally in a mischievous aside. "Doesn't thee, Peggy?"

To Peggy's amusement the youth turned quickly:

"I am, Mistress Sally. I--I'd like all three here."

And thus, with laughter and light conversation, the day passed. The
beautiful country places which had bordered the road near Philadelphia
gave way to pleasant villages, and these in turn were succeeded by
thick woods whose pure clean beauty elicited exclamations of delight.
In many places the road was unbroken, and the sleigh passed under
white laden branches which drooped heavily, and which at the slightest
jar would discharge their burden over the party in miniature
snow-storms. They had made such a late start that it was decided to
lie at Bristol for the night, and reached that place as the afternoon
sun began to cast long chill shadows through the darkening woods and
to shroud the way in fast deepening obscurity.

Across the Delaware the road took them through dense forests, and
over trackless vacancies of snow-clad spaces into which the highway
disappeared. There were a few scattering villages, and near these they
encountered travelers, but on the highroad they met no one. In spite
of themselves this fact wore upon them. The cold was not severe, but
there was a stillness that held a penetrating chillness of its own.
The country was undulating, swelling into an elevation called the
Atlantic Highlands near the coast, and into the range of mountains in
the north known as the Kittatinny Hills. All were well covered with
forests of pine.

By noon of the third day they emerged from the woods, and found a long
stretch of white-clad country before them. A few farms could be seen
in the far distance, but otherwise there was no sign of life on the
wide expanse. It seemed to Peggy and Sally that the highway lay over
vast snow fields, and the glare of the sunlight on the snow began to
blur and blind them.

"I should welcome the sight of bird or beast," observed Nurse Johnson.
"The stillness hath been oppressive to-day. 'Tis the hard part of
winter travel. In summer there is