ure out to look at her Partridge Wyandottes? She's
never missed going to them at four o'clock yet."

"I wish she'd let us go with her; I should love to tramp over the snow!"

"So should I; but she says we must none of us go farther than the shed.
Brown has swept the courtyard at the back. If it's fine to-morrow, we'll
have some fun."

After falling steadily for twenty-four hours, the snow stopped, and gave
place to bright sunshine. Miss Drummond ordered dinner to be earlier
than usual, and by half-past one the whole school was out upon the
downs.

It was an ideal winter's day. The sky was clear, with the cold, pale
blue of January, so different from the deep, warm azure of July. The
sun, low down on the horizon, though it was still near its meridian,
sent long, slanting rays over the white waste, catching the tops of the
hills and making them shine and sparkle like diamonds. Each bush and
tree was coated with rime, and edged with a tracery of delicate
lacework. The snow, crisp and hard, crunched under the girls' feet as
they walked, and here and there they could mark the track of a rabbit or
a bird that had hurried through the cold, to shelter under the
protection of some gorse-bush.

"It's just like fairyland! It might be part of the Frost King's Palace!"
said Aldred. "I'm sure the Snow Queen has been here. I feel as if we
ought to find Gerda hunting for little Kay--I expect she's just behind
that bush, riding the Robber Maiden's reindeer, with her hands in the
big muff. The Lapland woman and the Finland woman can't be far off."

"What do you mean?" asked Lorna Hallam.

"You benighted girl! have you never read Hans Andersen?"

"I believe I did, ages ago, but I've forgotten it all."

"So much the worse for you, then!"

"Why, one can't bother to remember silly fairy tales!"

"Hans Andersen is not silly; he's a classic."

"Quite right!" said Miss Drummond, who happened to overhear. "I consider
the dear old Dane was one of the truest poets that ever lived. His
writing has a purity of style that sets it on a very high pinnacle in
literature, and his thoughts are most exquisite. No one who has really
appreciated his lovely, tender stories can ever be quite vulgar and
commonplace. He seems to take all the simple, everyday things, and wave
his magic wand over them and turn them into enchantment."

"But the tales aren't true, Miss Drummond!" objected Lorna. "One can't
see fairies."

"There is a meaning under it