not. It is dark now nearly
in the forest, and we shall have the loveliest moonlight drive back."

"But it is surely very dangerous to let a man who goes to sleep drive
you," said Minora apprehensively.

"But he's such an old dear," I said.

"Yes, yes, no doubt," she replied tastily; "but there are wakeful old
dears to be had, and on a box they are preferable."

Irais laughed. "You are growing quite amusing, Miss Minora," she said.

"He isn't on a box to-day," said I; "and I never knew him to go to sleep
standing up behind us on a sleigh." But Minora was not to be appeased,
and muttered something about seeing no fun in foolhardiness, which shows
how alarmed she was, for it was rude.

Peter, however, behaved beautifully on the way home, and Irais and I at
least were as happy as possible driving back, with all the glories of
the western sky flashing at us every now and then at the end of a long
avenue as we swiftly passed, and later on, when they had faded, myriads
of stars in the narrow black strip of sky over our heads. It was
bitterly cold, and Minora was silent, and not in the least inclined to
laugh with us as she had been six hours before.

"Have you enjoyed yourself, Miss Minora?' inquired Irais, as we got out
of the forest on to the chaussee, and the lights of the village before
ours twinkled in the distance.

"How many degrees do you suppose there are now?" was Minora's reply to
this question.

"Degrees?--Of frost? Oh, dear me, are you cold," cried Irais
solicitously.

"Well, it isn't exactly warm, is it?" said Minora sulkily; and Irais
pinched me. "Well, but think how much colder you would have been without
all that fur you ate for lunch inside you," she said. "And what a nice
chapter you will be able to write about the Baltic," said I. "Why, it is
practically certain that you are the first English person who has ever
been to just this part of it."

"Isn't there some English poem," said Irais, "about being the first who
ever burst--"

"'Into that silent sea,'" finished Minora hastily. "You can't quote that
without its context, you know."

"But I wasn't going to," said Irais meekly; "I only paused to breathe. I
must breathe, or perhaps I might die."

The lights from my energetic friend's Schloss shone brightly down upon
us as we passed round the base of the hill on which it stands; she is
very proud of this hill, as well she may be, seeing that it is the only
one in the whole district.

"Do yo