"I'm getting to the end of my nights," Archie said regretfully. "I had a letter from the chief, to-day, and he wants me to report to him, the first." "So soon as that?" Hope's tone was remonstrant, as she looked at him with startled eyes. "You didn't mean to go so early." "No; I meant to stay till the fifteenth; but this will take me off, next week." "Does mamma know?" Theodora asked. "Not yet. Don't tell her, please, till to-morrow. She always hates to have me start off again, when I've been home." "No wonder," Theodora said impulsively. "You aren't half so bad as you might be, Uncle Archie." He bowed low. "Thanks awfully. But I am freezing. I'll race you two girls to the dead pine and back." "All right. You be umpire, Billy. What's the prize?" "A mate to your nugget. Come on." With a laughing word to Billy, they swept off up the pond, while the ice rang hard under their long, swinging strokes. Archie led; but Hope and Theodora were close behind him when he reached the old pine-tree. As they turned to face the sheet of silver light reflected back from the surface of the ice, Theodora gasped with the beauty of it all, and with the tense physical excitement of the moment. For one instant, she seemed possessed with the glorious madness of living, with the splendor of the night, with the cold, sharp air and the exhilaration of the exercise. The next moment, as she mustered all her strength to pass Archie, she saw him stagger and fall. He had skated on a half-buried stick, and the sudden check to his progress had thrown him headlong on the ice. There was an instantaneous hush, when it seemed to Theodora that all the glory had died out of the universe. When she regained her scattered senses, Hubert had whirled Billy up to the spot, while Hope, quiet and dainty as ever, but a shade paler than usual, sat on the ice with Archie's head resting in her lap and her handkerchief pressed against the cut in his forehead. "Be quiet, Teddy," she said gently. "Archie isn't dead, dear. I think it has only stunned him a little." With a gasp of shame, Theodora realized that she had been crying aloud in her excitement, while the blurred scratches on the ice showed that she had been flying about the group in a futile distraction. With a groan of self-disgust, she dropped down on the footboard of Billy's chair. "I didn't mean to," she said contritely. "How can you always know just what to do, Hope? I wish I didn't act like an ape, whenever I'm frightened. But do you think he's much hurt?" Archie answered the question by opening his eyes. He looked up at Hope for a minute, first in wonder at his position, then with an expression of infinite content, as he saw her pretty face bent over him and read the anxiety in her eyes. Then his own eyes grew merry, as he glanced at the tearful, dishevelled Theodora. "I'm not dead yet," he said. "You came near beating me; but you haven't done it yet, my fair niece." He tried to rise as he spoke.