It was a jolly little lunch, where every one talked together. Mrs. Marsh was at a neighbour’s helping in the care of a new baby, and Mr. Marsh had gone to Boston on some business connected with the great slave question. “You know, people say we may go to war over this business of keeping slaves,” Meg said, with sudden gravity. “But that seems too horrible.” “If I were a man I’d like to go to war,” Jo announced, with flashing eyes. Rose and Ruth were conscious of a hazy recollection. Surely there had been—but they couldn’t feel certain. “Well, thank heaven, you can’t, Jo,” sighed Meg, “but I’m awfully afraid that father will. As chaplain of his regiment, you know.” A frightened hush spread over the little crowd of girls, and then Beth, in her soft voice, spoke the right word: “We’ll be sorry—but a glorious kind of sorry,” she said. “Father does what is right, and makes us all love it.” “So he does,” smiled Meg, “and you are a sweet child, Beth.” And then they were all laughing again, and war seemed far away, while good things to eat were very close at hand. Hannah had made corn bread, such cornbread, and there was a wonderful sort of apple pudding-pie that Amy hailed joyously as “pandowdy” and which Rose and Ruth found delectable. And then it was time to hurry into one’s outdoor clothes again, and make for the river, where the whole village was to skate that afternoon. Meg decided to take Amy and Beth with her by way of the highroad, but Jo asked the two guests if they wouldn’t like to go through the woods with her. “It’s such fun breaking through the drifts, and I see you’ve your arctics. They have tramped a kind of path, so it won’t be too hard for us, and the woods must look splendid.” So it was agreed that the strangers should go that way, to see the woods, and have the excitement of a real tramp through the snow, while Meg saw the two little girls safe. They would meet at the river. What fun it was! Rose and Ruth could not believe that they were really following Jo off the road and up a path under pines all powdered with snow, yet that’s just what they did. How fine and bracing the air was, and how pink the three pairs of cheeks! They went along, chattering madly, and presently Jo confided that she was writing a story. “It’s most thrilling,” she said, “all about two lovers in a high tower, and a terrible old uncle who isn’t really their uncle but an impostor. And in the end he’s found dead with his hand on the knob of the secret door where all the money is hidden——” The two girls listened, gasping. What a gorgeous plot! And now they were in the heart of the woods. The trees crowded close, the snow was deeper than was easy to get through. Ruth floundered in spots, laughing, and Jo took her hand to help her. “It’s drifted in a little,” she said. “When we get through this dip it won’t be so deep.”