"Oh, but how hard she tried," and he feigned regret. "Tavia would have taught me to feed out of her hand, had I not been-so well brought up."

This bantering occupied the moments between the time Ted's sleigh glided into view, and its arrival at the door of the Cedars.

"'Lo, 'lo!" exclaimed Mabel, her cheeks matching the scarlet of her Tam o'Shanter.

"Low, low! Sweet and Low!" responded Nat. "Also so low!"

"No-but Milo!" said Ned, with a complimentary look at Mabel. "The Venus mended."

"'High low,'" went on Ted. "That's what it is. A high-low and the game!

To go out there to-night in this freeze!"

"Strange thing," Dorothy murmured, "how young men freeze up-sort of antagonistic convulsion."

"Oh, come on," drawled Ned, "when a girl wills, she will-and there's an end on it."

It did not take the girls long to comply-Dorothy was out with Ted, Mabel, Nat and Ned before the boys had a chance to relent.

"Those bundles?" questioned Ted, as Dorothy surrounded herself with the things for Emily.

"Now did you ever!" exclaimed Dorothy. "It seems to me everything is displeasing to-day."

"No offence, I'm sure," Ted hastened to correct, "but the fact is-we boys had a sort of good time framed up for this afternoon. Not but what we are delighted to be of service--"

"Why didn't you say so?" Dorothy asked.

It seemed for the moment that the girls and boys were not to get along in their usual pleasant manner. But the wonderful sleighing, and the delightful afternoon, soon obliterated the threatening difficulties, and a happy, laughing party in each cutter glided over the road, now evenly packed with mid-winter snow.

The small boys along the way occasionally stole a ride on the back runners of the sleighs, or "got a hitch" with sled or bob, thus saving the walk up hill or the jaunt to the ice pond.

"Oh, there's Dr. Gray!" Dorothy exclaimed suddenly as a gentleman in fur coat and cap was seen hurrying along. "I wonder why he is walking?"

"For his health, likely," Ted answered. "Doctors know the sort of medicine to take for their own const.i.tutions."

By this time they were abreast of the physician. Dorothy called out to him:

"Where's your horse, Doctor?"

"Laid up," replied the medical man, with a polite greeting. "He slipped yesterday--"

"Going far?" Ted interrupted, drawing his horse up.

"Out to Sanders's," replied the doctor.

"Sanders's!" repeated Dorothy. "That's where we're going. Who's sick?"

"The baby," replied the doctor, "and they asked me to hurry."

"Get in with us," Ted invited, while Dorothy almost gasped. Little Emily sick! She could scarcely believe it.

Dr. Gray gladly accepted the invitation to ride, and the next cutter with Ned, Nat and Mabel, pulled up along side of Ted's.

"You may as well turn back," Dorothy told them. Then she explained that little Emily was sick, and likely would not want her Christmas tree trimmed.

"But I'll go along," she said, "I may be able to help, for her mother is sick, even if she is with her."

After all her preparations, it was a great disappointment to think the child could not enjoy the gifts. Dr. Gray told her, however, that Emily was subject to croup, and that perhaps the spell would not last.

At the house they found everything in confusion. Emily's sick mother coughed harder at every attempt she made to help the little one, while Mr. Sanders, the child's grandfather, tried vainly to get water hot on a lukewarm stove.

"Pretty bad, Doc," he said with a groan, "thought she'd choke to death last night."

Without waiting to be directed, Dorothy threw aside her heavy coat, drew off her gloves, and was breaking bits of wood in her hands, to hurry the kettle that, being watched, had absolutely refused to boil.

"You can just put that oil on to heat, Miss Dale," Dr. Gray said, he having bidden the sick woman to keep away from Emily. "We'll rub her up well with warm oil, and see if we can loosen up that congestion."

Emily lay on the uneven sofa, her cheeks burning, and her breath jerking in struggles and coughs.

Dorothy found a pan and had the oil hot before the doctor was ready to use it.

"Quite a nurse," he said, in that pleasant way the country doctor is accustomed to use. "Glad I happened to meet you."

"I'm glad, too," Dorothy replied sincerely. "Never mind, Emily, you will have your Christmas tree, as soon as we get the naughty cold cured," she told the child.

Emily's eyes brightened a little. The tree still stood in a corner of the room. Outside, Ted was driving up and down the road in evident impatience, but Dorothy was too busy to notice him.

Soon the hot applications took effect, and Emily breathed more freely and regularly. Then the doctor attended to the other patient-the mother. It was a sad Christmas time, and had a depressing effect even on the young spirits of Dorothy. She tried to speak to Emily, but her eyes wandered around at the almost bare room, and noted its untidy appearance. Dishes were piled up on the table, pans stood upon the floor, papers were littered about. How could people live that way? she wondered.

Mrs. Tripp, Emily's mother, must be a widow, Dorothy thought, and she knew old Mrs. Sanders had died the Winter before.

The doctor had finished with Mrs. Tripp. He glanced anxiously about him.

To whom would he give instructions? Mr. Sanders seemed scarcely capable of giving the sick ones the proper care.

Dorothy saw the look of concern on the doctor's face and she rightly interpreted it.

"If we only could take them to some other place," she whispered to him.

Then she stopped, as a sudden thought seized her.

"Doesn't Mr. Wolters always make a Christmas gift to the sanitarium?" she asked Dr. Gray.

"Always," replied the doctor.

"Then why can't we ask him to have little Emily and her mother taken to the sanitarium? They surely need just such care," she said quickly.

The doctor slapped one hand on the other, showing that the suggestion had solved the problem. Then he motioned Dorothy out into the room across the small hall. She shivered as she entered it, for it was without stove, or other means of heating.

"If I only had my horse," he said, "I would go right over to Wolters's.

He would do a great deal for me, and I want that child cared for to-night."