They struggled on, slipping over their boot tops, and though the snow was dry, Rose noticed that her voluminous skirts were getting heavy. She longed for the sensible clothes they wore at home. Suddenly a sound like some one sobbing struck her ears. She was a step or two ahead of Jo and her sister. “Do you hear that, girls?” she asked, looking around anxiously. “I thought I heard some one crying.” “Crying!” exclaimed Jo. “Perhaps it’s a fox or——” But at that moment the sound broke out again, and crying it undoubtedly was. They hurried on, a little scared, turned a bend, and there, sure enough, huddled in the snow at the foot of a huge evergreen, sat a small, a very small boy. “Gee-willikins!” grunted Rose, while Jo rushed forward, and Ruth stared, white and frightened. She was very young. “He’s alive safe enough,” said Jo, in her deepest voice, as the small boy started wailing in earnest at sight of her. Rose joined her, and the two bent over the youngster, who looked up at them, pale and with his face streaked with tears. “Poor little thing! How on earth did he get here, d’you suppose?” “He must be lost,” hazarded Rose, rubbing the boy’s hands, that were almost frozen. Ruth had come up by this time, and the three began to question the child all together. He only stared in response, but when Jo drew a cookie out of her pocket, he smiled faintly, and began to munch it. “Poor baby, he’s famished. How did you get here all alone, little man?” And Jo bent over him, wrapping part of her cloak over the shivering little body. He gurgled an unintelligible reply, but stopped crying. Rose looked at Jo. “He’d have probably died out here if we hadn’t come this way,” she whispered. “What are we going to do with him?” “We’ve got to get him home somehow,” Jo answered. “I wonder if he can walk.” She turned to the boy, and smiled encouragingly. “Can you come a little way with us, sonny?” His eyes filled with tears again, but he nodded. “Tell you what, girls,” said Jo, briskly, “I’ll try to carry him a bit. You two go ahead and trample down the snow as much as you can, and I’ll follow. It’s like a story, isn’t it?” She got the little lad up, wrapping her cloak round him, and holding him snuggled close. He put his arms round her neck, and smiled. “Dear little cold thing,” Jo muttered hoarsely, and then began to struggle back home as well as she might. But very soon she had to sit down and rest. “I’ll take him now, Jo,” said Rose. “We can do it somehow, turn and turn about.” And so they did, but it was awfully hard work. The youngster fell asleep, shivering still, for he was wet with melted snow, and his torn shoes showed bare toes. A forlorn mite! The skating party was forgotten as the three girls struggled homeward through the drifts. Pretty nearly exhausted themselves, they finally reached the cottage. The lamp was lighted in the living room, and the light streamed hospitably down across the path. Mrs. Marsh met them at the door.