girls who lived on the other
side of Milton. A few private equipages arrived for some of the young
folk. The fathers of some had tramped through the snow to the farmhouse
to make sure that their daughters were properly escorted home in the
fast quickening storm.

To look out of doors, it seemed a perfect wall of falling snow that the
lamplight streamed out upon. Fortunately it was not very cold, nor did
the wind blow. But at the corner of the house there was a drift as deep
as Neale O'Neil's knees.

"But we'll pull through all right, girls, if you want to try it," he
assured Ruth and Agnes.

They did not like to wait until the sledges got back; that might not be
for an hour. And even then the vehicles would be overcrowded. "Come on!"
said Agnes. "Let's risk it, Ruth."

"I don't know but that we'd better----"

"Pshaw! Neale will get us through. He knows a shortcut--so he says."

"Of course we can trust Neale," said the older Corner House girl,
smiling, and she made no further objection.

They had already bidden their hostess and her father and mother
good-night. So when the trio set off toward town nobody saw them start.
They took the lane beside the barn and went right down the hill, between
the stone fences, now more than half hidden by the snow.

When they got upon the flats, and the lights of the house were hidden,
it did seem as though they were in a great, white desert.

"Who told you this was a short way to town?" demanded Agnes, of Neale.

"Why, one of the girls told me," Neale said, innocently enough. "You
know--that Severn girl."

"What! Trix Severn?" shrieked Agnes.

"Yes."

"I believe she started you off this way, just for the sake of getting us
all into trouble," cried Agnes. "Let's go back!"

But they were now some distance out upon the flats. Far, far ahead there
were faint lights, denoting the situation of Milton; but behind them all
the lights on the hill had been quenched. The Pooles had extinguished
the lamps at the back of the house, and of course ere this the great
barn itself was shrouded in darkness.

The snow came thicker and faster. They were in the midst of a world of
white and had there been any shelter at all at hand, Neale would have
insisted upon taking advantage of it. But there was nothing of the kind.

CHAPTER XIV

UNCLE RUFUS' STORY OF THE CHRISTMAS GOOSE

"Trix is going to stay all night with Carrie. If we go back she will
only laugh at us," Ruth Kenway sa