rie Sherwood's little, red, round, laughing face
peeped in.

"O Carrie! is that you? Come in."

Carrie tripped in, and while her eyes flashed with excitement, she said:

"O Jessie, we have found a nice slide out on the edge of the brook. It is
the first time the ice has frozen hard enough to bear this fall, and we
are having such a nice time. Come and see it, just for a moment."

"A slide!" exclaimed Jessie, who dearly loved sliding. "Oh, I'm so glad.
I'll go with you just to look at it. I can't stay, you know, because I
must come back and sew until twelve o'clock."

Dropping her sewing, Jessie ran to a closet, equipped herself in cloak and
hood and, taking Carrie's hand, trotted out to see this first slide of the
season.

A short distance from Glen Morris Cottage a broad, shallow brook crossed
the public highway. A bridge led over the brook. Along the sides of the
buttresses of this bridge, the water had flowed back for several yards
over the bottom of a ditch or hollow, and being only an inch or two in
depth, the sharp frosts of the early days of November had frozen it solid,
though the brook itself was still babbling as if in proud defiance of the
frost-king.

To this ditch Carrie led Jessie. Emily and Charlie were already there
enjoying themselves finely.

"Isn't it nice?" said Carrie when they had fairly reached the spot.

"You shan't come on to my slide," growled selfish Charlie.

"Nor on to mine," cried his sister.

"You will let us slide after you, won't you, Emily?" asked Jessie.

"No, I want this slide all to myself," replied Emily.

"You can go down the brook and find slides for yourselves. You shan't use
ours," cried Charlie, as shaking his fist at the two girls, he added,
"I'll lick you both if you don't keep off."

"Well, I never saw any thing so selfish as that before, I declare," said
Carrie Sherwood, striking the ground with her foot, and looking very angry
as she spoke. "The next time I invite them to spend the day at my house
they shall certainly know it."

"Oh, never mind, never mind," said Jessie. "We can look at them, and that
will be almost as good as sliding ourselves. Perhaps they will get tired
presently, and then we can slide while they rest."

"No, we shan't get tired either, Miss Jessie," retorted Charlie. "We mean
to slide until dinner-time."

"And then you expect to eat dinner at _my_ house, I suppose. Really, you
are a very generous boy!" replied Carrie, in a bitter to