nd she was
sorry. She sighed as she rose from her chair and picked up the book that
still lay on the floor, but she had lost all interest in the story; so she
threw it carelessly on the table and went downstairs to await the coming of
the rest, her thoughts still busy over the problems that Hugh's unexpected
visit had aroused.

Dexie found that the party had not improved Gussie's temper, for she came
home with many complaints as to how she had been neglected.

"I wish you had gone," she said spitefully to Dexie. "I was sick and tired
of hearing people ask where you were, and why you had not come, and there
was not a soul there that I cared to talk to, even Mr. McNeil disappeared,
no one knows where."

Dexie colored slightly as her father regarded her curiously; no further
mention was made of the matter at the time. Mr. Sherwood, however, was not
surprised when, a short time after, someone came behind him, and, with arms
around his neck, confessed in his ear that "Mr. McNeil had been in to see
her, but had come in through the attic, because he was not allowed in by
the door, and that they had quarrelled a little, but parted friends," and
ended by asking him "not to tell mamma, for fear Gussie might get hold of
it."

"Poor little girl, she has quite a time of it among them," her father said
as she left him; "yet I think I can safely leave it all with herself."

CHAPTER XXXIII.

"Only one week more and we must say good-bye to dear old Halifax," said
Dexie one morning, as she hurriedly made her toilet.

"Well, I am glad of it, for it is cold enough here this morning to freeze a
bear," replied Gussie from among the blankets.

"Oh! Gussie, the ground is covered with snow, and it is still snowing,"
said Dexie, joyfully, as she raised the window curtain. "Oh, I do hope it
will last until we can have one more sleigh drive," and she ran downstairs
singing like a lark.

All day the snow kept falling in large heavy flakes, but towards evening
the weather turned clear and frosty. Then the merry jingle of sleigh-bells
could be heard on every side, for everyone who could was taking advantage
of this, the first sleighing of the season.

Lancy had no trouble in getting Dexie to promise him her company for a
sleigh drive, but he was planning for a private little drive in a single
sleigh, with only room for two; while Dexie, not quite so sentimentally
inclined, was hoping to make it a jolly sleighing party, in which a n