"It's not so unbecoming!" commented the governess, observing Nan critically with her head on one side.

Nan looked in the mirror. What she saw there was the reflection of a flushed, excited face with keen, young eyes that were just now unusually large and bright. Sundry riotous tendrils of hair had escaped from their restraining combs and were flying loose at the temples, and, framing all, was a circle of dusky, flattering fur which lent a look of softness and roundness to the firm, square chin and rose above the brow in a quaint, coquettish peak which was vastly graceful and becoming.

"O Miss Blake!" cried Nan, her eyes flashing with pleasure, "isn't it the darlingest thing? And as warm as toast! I'll be ever and ever so careful of it. You're awfully good to lend it to me. But I really think I oughtn't to take it. Something might happen; it might get lost."

"Don't give it another thought," Miss Blake said, kindly. "Just wear it and keep warm and comfortable. You must take the gloves, too. They will keep your fingers cozy."

So Nan set out looking like a young Russian in her borrowed furs and feeling what satisfaction she might in the consciousness that she was appearing, if not behaving, at her best.

She found most of the party already a.s.sembled at Mrs. Cole's and as the door was opened to her, a loud chorus of shouting laughter met her ears and she was laid hold of by a dozen hands and dragged forward under the gaslight.

"Pooh!" shrieked the chorus again. "This one's easy enough! Nan Cutler! first guess," and she was released as hurriedly as she had been set upon, while the entire company fell upon a later comer and tried to discover the ident.i.ty of the m.u.f.fled, veiled individual before she had either spoken or recovered from the unexpected onslaught.

"Well, Nan," cried Harley Morris, jovially, "you're the only girl who isn't m.u.f.fled out of all recognition. We've had a dandy time trying to identify some of them."

"I never saw you look so well," declared Louie Hawes, generously, with her eyes glued to the fascinating peak.

"Nor I," broke in Mary Brewster. "Really, I didn't know you at first.

That hood is as disguising to you as our veils are to us."

Nan flushed, but made no response. Harley Morris gave a low whistle and strolled off to join John Gardiner, who was standing before the fire talking with grave-faced Mr. Cole, and as he went she heard him murmur under his breath:

"Sweet remark! Oh, these dear girl friends!"

It instantly changed her feeling from momentary resentment toward Mary to pity for her.

All at once Mrs. Cole's shrill treble was heard high above the hum and murmur of the other voices, crying:

"Now, girls and boys, time's almost up! It any of the party's missing, he or she will be left behind! Prompt's the word."

Then, stepping over to her husband, she tapped him lightly on the shoulder and said:

"There now, Tom, I'm glad we're going, for you're looking as solemn as an owl. Cheer up and have a lovely time with your book and that jolly fire, and don't forget to go to bed at nine o'clock like a good little boy."

Mary Brewster laughed, and most of the others joined in her merriment.

But Mr. Cole looked so troubled and stern that Nan, who was gazing at him from the corners of her eyes, saw no reason to laugh at his wife's sally, but felt a much greater inclination to cry for pity of him and his anxious face.

Suddenly she was roused from her musing by John Gardiner's voice close at her ear.

"Nan!" he said.

"Oh, heyo, John!"

"I want to tell you something," he went on, nervously, in a hesitating whisper. "From the looks of her, Mrs. Cole means to carry things with a high hand to-night. Hope we won't come to grief. Sometimes the motto is 'everything goes,' and then it isn't so easy to hold back and stand for the things you ought to. I depend on you, Nan, to keep a level head, for some of us'll have to act as ballast or we'll all go under."

Nan's face glowed with gratification. "All right, John," she responded staunchly, and then, Mrs. Cole giving the signal, in an instant the roomful seemed to fling itself helter-skelter to the hall-door, fastening boas and m.u.f.flers as it went, all eager and breathless to be off. There was a deal of laughing and exclaiming, shrieking and protesting as the girls were bundled, one after another, into the sleigh.

"Is this you, Lu?"

"Yes. O dear! I have lost my veil. No, here it is, dragged under my chin."

"I thought I was to sit next to you, Nan!"

"Oh, that's all right, Mary's there, and it's too late to change now.

No matter."

John Gardiner leaped up.

"I say there, Mike, hold your horses for a second. Would you mind moving down a place, Mary? Thanks! Mrs. Cole said I was to sit next to Nan, and as we are all under her orders to-night I'm bound to obey.

There! this is what I call festive! 'A thorn between two roses,' eh?"

and he settled himself comfortably between the two girls with a great, hearty laugh and a final "Ready!" at which word the horses started into a brisk trot. Their bells broke into a silver chime; the sleigh swept smoothly over the glaze of snow, and the evening's fun began.

Some one had brought a tin horn, and this was blown with such a vim that conversation was impossible. But remarks and retorts were shouted from one side to the other, and the tamest of them brought forth peals of laughter.

The heaven above them was densely black, and out of it flashed innumerable stars like sparks white-hot and quivering with inward fire.

But the wind that swept across the sky was so cold that it made it seem to contract and retreat and leave the shivering world an inconceivable depth below.

Swathed and bundled as they were, the girls very soon began to feel the deadly chill in the icy air.

"Nan's shivering like an ash-pan!" John cried out suddenly. "Has anybody got an extra shawl or something they can lend her?"

"Hush!" returned the girl, trying to control her trembling, "it's nothing; I'm all right."

"Pity she can't keep warm with John Gardiner beside her!" Mrs. Cole suggested.

In the shadow Nan's teeth came together with a snap of disgust. She saw now what it was in Mrs. Cole that offended Miss Blake. She had never noticed it before, but it had been there, and she knew it. John made no retort, while the others laughed and applauded.

"Here, Nan!" spoke up some one at the other end of the sleigh, "here's a cigarette. Take it and warm yourself before its genial blaze," and it was pa.s.sed along from hand to hand, its ruddy point glinting out in the shadow as it went along. When it came to Mary, instead of handing it on at once, she held it a moment, then suddenly raised it to her lips.

"Hey, there! Turn off the draught!" cried its owner merrily at sight of the newly-glowing tip.

"Shut down the damper!" shouted some one else.

"I dare you to smoke it!" laughed Mrs. Cole.

Mary deliberately took a long puff.

Nan leaned back behind John and laid her gloved hand impulsively on Mary's shoulder. "O Mary!" she protested in a whisper. "Don't.

Please! It'll make you sick."

But the girl was not to be thwarted. She shook off Nan's hand impatiently.

"Mind your own business!" she replied, and took another puff.

On they swept through the icy air, across the snow-covered country, amid the white night. The horn blew; the voices sang and shouted, and finally the sleigh swung up before the hospitable road-house, where every window was alight and their steaming supper awaited them.

It was harder to get out of the sleigh than it had been to get in it, for joints that at first had been limber and strong were now stiff and cramped from cold and disuse, and the girls made a sorry show, limping and halting from the sleigh to the house. When Nan first gained the ground she could hardly stand, but a little vigorous exercise soon sent the blood tingling through her veins again and unknotted her muscles, and she was about to run gayly up the path when she felt a hand upon her shoulder, and looking round saw Mary Brewster beside her, her face ghastly and drawn in the pallid moonlight and her chin quivering weakly in a manner that Nan saw at once was not the effect of the cold.