attached to a bobsled that four girls were drawing.

"Never is a long word," admitted Nan. "I didn't quite mean that; but the
weather's been so mild up to now that I was getting desperate."

"Nan registering desperation," put in Laura Polk, she of the red hair
and irrepressible spirits.

Laura struck an attitude of mock desperation, but the effect was marred
when her foot slipped and she went down with a thump.

Her laughing mates helped her to her feet and brushed the snow off her
dress.

"The wicked stand on slippery places," quoted Grace Mason mischievously.

"Yes," Laura came back, as quick as a flash, "I see that they do, but I
can't."

The shout of laughter that followed atoned somewhat for her loss of
dignity--although she had not lost much, for Laura and dignity were
hardly on speaking terms.

Laughing and chattering, all trying to talk at once and all succeeding,
the bevy of light-hearted girls reached the top of the hill.

Before them stretched Lake Huron, extending farther than their eyes
could see. For a long distance out from shore the lake seemed frozen
solid. A small island rose above the ice about half a mile distant, and
this was the limit fixed upon for the coasters. The cove between the
foot of the hill and the island had a glassy coating of ice that had
been swept and scraped and served for skating as well as coasting.

"I wonder if it's perfectly safe," remarked Grace Mason, a little
timidly. "You know this is the first time the cove's been frozen this
winter, and we haven't tried it yet."

"Bless your little heart, you'll be as safe as if you were on a
battlefield," was the dubious comfort that Laura held out.

"Much safer than that," interposed Professor Krenner, the teacher of
mathematics and architectural drawing at the Lakeview Hall school that
the girls were attending. "You can be sure that neither Dr. Prescott nor
I would take any chances on that score. A heavy logging team went over
it yesterday, and the ice didn't even creak, let alone crack. And every
day that passes of this kind of weather makes it thicker and stronger."

"My, but that's a comfort," remarked Laura. "I'd hate to have this young
life of mine cut off just when it's so full of promise."

"How Laura hates herself," put in Bess Harley.

"You're perfectly safe, Laura," Nan assured her. "Only the good die
young, you know."

The professor's kindly eyes twinkled as he looked from one to the other
of the rosy-chee