The boy knew at once that he must be careful in making his way home with the little girl. Having seen one great fissure in the ice, he might come upon another. It seemed to him as though the ice under his feet was in motion. In the distance was the sound of a reverberating crash that could mean but one thing. _The ice in the cove was breaking up!_ The waters of the two brooks were pouring down into the cove. This swelling flood lifted the great sheet of spongy ice and set it in motion. Everywhere at the head of the cove the ice was cracking and breaking up. The wind helped. Spring had really come, and the annual freshet was likely now to force the ice entirely out of the cove and open the way for traffic in a few hours. CHAPTER XXI—THE CHAPEL BELL If Joseph Stagg had obeyed the precept of his little niece on this particular afternoon and had been “looking up,” instead of having his nose in the big ledger, making out monthly statements, he might have discovered the coming storm in season to withdraw his permission to Chet to take Carolyn May out on the ice. It was always dark enough in the little back office in winter for the hardware dealer to have a lamp burning. So he did not notice the snow flurry that had taken Sunrise Cove in its arms until he chanced to walk out to the front of the store for needed exercise. “I declare to man, it’s snowing!” muttered Joseph Stagg. “Thought we’d got through with that for this season.” He opened the store door. There was a chill, clammy wind, and the snow was damp and packed quickly under foot. The street was already well covered, and the snow stuck to the awning frames and the fronts of the buildings across the way. “Hum! If that Chet Gormley were here now, he might be of some use for once,” thought Mr. Stagg. “But, of course, he never is here when I want him. He could clean this walk before folks get all balled up walking on it.” Suddenly he bethought him of the errand that had taken the boy away from the store. Not at once was the hardware merchant startled by the thought; but he cast a critical glance skyward, trying to measure the downfall of snow. “He’ll be coming back—with Hannah’s Car’lyn. Of course, he isn’t rattle-brained enough to take her out on the ice when it’s snowing like this.” “Hey, Stagg!” shouted a shopkeeper from over the way, who had likewise come to the door, “did you hear that?” “Hear what?” asked Joseph Stagg, puzzled. “There she goes again! That’s ice, old man. She’s breaking up. We’ll have spring with us in no time now. I told Scofield this morning he could begin to load that schooner of his. The ice is going out of the cove.” The reverberating crash that had startled Chet Gormley had startled Joseph Stagg as well.