leaping flames.

As Ruth and Alice were about to go down, having called to their father
across the hall that they were ready for him, there came a knock on
their door.

"Come in!" invited Ruth.

"Sorry to trouble you," spoke Miss Pennington, "but have you any cold
cream and--er--powder? Our things were left in the other sled--I mean
all of those things, and Laura and I can't--we simply can't get along
without them."

"I have cold cream," said Alice. "But powder--that is unless it's talcum
or rice----"

"That will have to do I guess," sighed the vaudeville actress. "But I
did hope you had a bit of rouge, I'm so pale!"

"Never use it!" said Alice quickly. Too quickly, hospitable Ruth
thought, for, though she decried the use of "paint," she would not be
rude to a guest, and, under these circumstances Miss Pennington was a
guest.

"You don't need it," the caller said, with a glance at Alice's glowing
cheeks, to whom the wind and snow had presented two damask spots that
were most becoming.

"The weather is very chapping to my face," the former vaudeville actress
went on. "I really must have something," and she departed with the cold
cream and some harmless rice powder, which Ruth and Alice used
judiciously and sparingly, and only when needed.

The fine supper, late as it was, necessarily, was enjoyed to the utmost.
It was bountiful and good, and though at first Miss Pennington and Miss
Dixon were inclined to sniff at the lack of "courses," and the absence
of lobster, it was noticed that they ate heartily.

"There is only one thing more I want," sighed Paul, as he leaned back in
his chair.

"What, pray? It seems to me, and I have been watching you, that you have
had about all that is good for you," laughed Alice. "I have seen you get
three separate and distinct helpings of fried chicken."

"Oh, I didn't mean anything more to eat," he said, quickly, "and if you
are going to watch me so closely I shall have to cut down my rations, I
fear. What I meant was that I would like a moving picture of this
supper. It has memories that long will linger, but I fain would have a
souvenir of it."

"Be careful that you don't get indigestion as a souvenir," laughed
Alice, as he followed her sister from the table.

The dining room opened off the great living apartment with that
wonderful fire, and following the meal all the members of the company
gathered about the hearth.

Outside the storm still raged, and Mr. Macksey,