"What are they, Mr. Howbridge? Boys or girls?"

"Both."

"Both? Oh! You mean one is a boy and one is a girl."

"Ralph and Rowena Birdsall."

"That is better than having two of either s.e.x, I should say," Ruth observed with more gravity. "They sort of--sort of balance each other."

"I guess they are 'some kids,' as our friend Neale would say,"

suddenly laughed Mr. Howbridge. "I knew Birdsall very well. I might say we were very close friends, both socially and in business. Poor fellow! The last two years of his life were very sad indeed."

"Has he left plenty for the twins?" asked Ruth.

"More than 'plenty,'" said Mr. Howbridge. "He was very, very wealthy.

Ralph and Rowena will come into very large fortunes when they are of age. The money is well invested."

"Then you need not worry about that," Ruth said sedately.

"No? The more money, the more worry for the administrator and guardian," Mr. Howbridge said succinctly. "I can a.s.sure you that is true. But it is what to do for, and with, the twins themselves that bothers me most just at first."

"How old are they?"

"About twelve. Nice age! All legs and arms and imagination."

"Dear me! Do you know them well?"

"Haven't seen them since they were two little red mites in their cradle."

"Then you merely imagine they are so very terrible."

"I heard enough about them from Frank, Frank Birdsall. That was their father's name. He used to be very fond of talking about them. Proud as Lucifer, he was, of Ralph and Rowena. And his wife--"

"Oh! Of course, the mother is dead, too."

"That was what killed Frank, I verily believe," said Mr. Howbridge gravely. "She died two years ago at a camp he owned up near the Canadian border. Red Deer Lodge it is called. Mrs. Birdsall was flung from her horse.

"It crushed her husband. He brought the children away from there (they had spent much of their time up in the wilderness, for they loved it) and never went back again.

"That's another piece of work he's left me. Because he did not want ever to see the Lodge again, I have to go up there--now, in mid-winter--and attend to something that's been hanging fire too long already. It is a nuisance."

"A camp in the woods in mid-winter must be an enjoyable place," Ruth said thoughtfully. "You can take your guns; and you can snowshoe; can skate; maybe--"

"And, as our good Mrs. Mac would say, eat fried s...o...b..a.l.l.s and icicle soup!" finished Mr. Howbridge. "Ugh! It's a fine place, Red Deer Lodge, but I shall take only my man and we'll have to depend on some old guide or trapper to do for us. No, I look forward to no pleasant time at Red Deer Lodge, I a.s.sure you."

This conversation was not carried on in sequence. The party in the body of the sleigh frequently interrupted. Sammy managed to dance all over the sleigh, and half a dozen times he was on the point of pitching out into the drifts.

"Let him!" snapped Agnes at last. "Let him be buried in the snow, and we won't stop for him--not until we come back."

"The poor kid would be an icicle then," objected Neale O'Neil.

"And he'd miss the nice hot chocolate and buns Mr. Howbridge says we are to have at Crowder's Inn," put in Tess, the thoughtful.

Dot squeezed her Alice-doll close to her little bosom and made up her mind that that precious possession should not pop out by accident into a drift and be left behind.

"I don't suppose I should have brought her," Dot confessed to Tess. "I should have given the sailor-boy baby an airing instead."

"Oh, yes! Nosmo King Kenway," murmured her sister.

Dot hurried on, ignoring the suggestive name of the sailor-boy baby who had been inadvertently christened after a sign on a barn door.

"You know," the smallest Corner House girl said, "Alice's complexion is so delicate. Of course, Neale had her all made over in the doll's hospital; but I am always afraid that the wind will crack it."

"I wouldn't worry so about her, Dot," advised Tess.

"You would if Alice were your baby," declared Dot. "And you know she is delicate. She's never been the same since Lillie Treble buried her with the dried apples in our back yard."

Meanwhile Neale O'Neil had caught a sentence or two flung back by the wind from the high front seat. He bobbed up between Mr. Howbridge and Ruth.

"What's all this about red deer, and snowshoes, and eating icicle soup?" he asked. "Sounds awfully interesting. Are you planning to go hunting, Mr. Howbridge?"

"I've got to go to a hunting lodge, clear up state, my boy," said the lawyer. "And I dread it just as much as you young folks would enjoy it."

"It would be fine, I think," murmured Ruth.

"Oh, bully!" shouted Agnes, suddenly standing up in the straw and clinging to Neale for support. "To a regular, sure-enough winter camp?

Then Carrie and Lucy Poole, and Trix Severn can't crow over us any more! They went, last year, to Letterbeg Camp, up beyond Hoosac."

"But, goodness, Agnes, wait till we are asked, do!" admonished Ruth.

"I never saw or heard of such precipitate young ones."

"Young one yourself!" grumbled Agnes.

"It's my fault," said the good-natured Neale. "Aggie misunderstood what I said."

"No need to worry about it," said Mr. Howbridge cheerfully. "If you young folks really want to come with me--"

"Oh, Mr. Howbridge!" exclaimed Ruth, in a tone that showed she, herself, had been much taken with the idea.

"Why, I hate to go alone. I can send up some servants to open the Lodge. Frank was always begging me to make use of it. After Mrs.

Birdsall was killed he never would go near the place, as I said.

Though I believe the twins, Ralph and Rowena, have been up there with a caretaker and a governess, or somebody to look out for them."

"Where are they now?" asked Ruth.

"The Birdsall place in Arlington was closed soon after Frank died, three months ago. His old butler and his wife live in a nice home near by, and they have the children and their governess with them."

"With just servants?" murmured Ruth.