Presently Pam came rushing in; she had tracked the footprints of her friend through the snow and had cast herself wildly against the front door, regardless alike of paint or bruises, and scrambled into Lucy’s lap in a very ecstasy. Nor was the Cub far off, and as the two young women, two dogs, and one youth trudged off presently to see the “estate,” as Lucy called it, she caught the boy by the wrist and held his right palm upward as a fortune-teller might, asking what to Brooke seemed strange questions. “Where did those blisters come from?” “Please, teacher, I got ’em splitting wood,” whined the Cub, in comic imitation of the drawl of the children at the school below at the cross-roads. “That dark red stain?” “Paint, off Silent Stead’s box sleigh—it’s been done over.” “Who, pray, is Silent Stead?” The Cub explained with adjectives and details, while Lucy made a mental note of the same, watching Brooke out of the tail of her eye the while. “Yes, but those dirty brown stains on the thumb and fingers—they are not paint!” “Nope—pine tar!” jerked the Cub, uncertain whether to laugh or resent this catechising, but deciding on the former. “Honour bright, nothing else?” “Honour bright!” “Then here’s your pipe!” cried Lucy gayly, to the further mystification of Brooke, who could not interpret the by-play. “Your birthday is half a year off and Christmas is past; what comes next? Why St. Valentine’s Day, of course! It’s a present for that with Pam’s love and my—respects for your fortitude!” Then, rummaging in the front of her blouse, the present and only pocket universal allowed women by fashion, she drew out a leather case that enclosed a meerschaum of really beautiful curve, the bowl being the carved head of the bull terrier! Then Brooke understood, and locking her arms in those of the other two, they slid her between them as they ran up and down an icy bit on the side road, while the Cub further suggested a good coast down the river slope on an improvised bob-sled after dinner. But after dinner and its dishwashing, in which Lucy gayly took part, the two young women ensconced themselves so snugly before the library fire that it would have taken a stronger lure than a whiz down ever so smooth a hill to drag them forth. Then they talked woman’s talk, and Brooke found herself gradually asking for people, as from the distance of another world, that two months ago she had met in almost daily intercourse; while the strangest part of all was the fact thus borne in upon her that a scant dozen, perhaps, were all among the throng who had been bound by kindred tastes which make the enduring sympathy called friendship. The rest were merely incidents, the floating clouds of summer skies bred and born of the caprice of social wind and weather.