"They're close to the North Pole," said George. "Look here--I don't care a straw about the Aurora Borealis, but I shouldn't mind discovering the North Pole: It's awfully difficult and dangerous, and then you come home and write a book about it with a lot of pictures, and everybody says how brave you are." Jane got off the fence. "Oh, George, _let's_," she said. "We shall never have such a chance again--all alone by ourselves--and quite late, too." "I'd go right enough if it wasn't for you," George answered gloomily, "but you know they always say I lead you into mischief--and if we went to the North Pole we should get our boots wet, as likely as not, and you remember what they said about not going on the grass." "They said the _lawn_," said Jane. "We're not going on the _lawn_. Oh, George, do, do let's. It doesn't look so _very_ far--we could be back before they had time to get dreadfully angry." "All right," said George, "but mind, I don't want to go." So off they went. They got over the fence, which was very cold and white and shiny because it was beginning to freeze, and on the other side of the fence was somebody else's garden, so they got out of that as quickly as they could, and beyond that was a field where there was another big bonfire, with people standing around it who looked quite dark-skinned. "It's like Indians," said George, and wanted to stop and look, but Jane pulled him on, and they passed by the bonfire and got through a gap in the hedge into another field--a dark one; and far away, beyond quite a number of other dark fields, the Northern Lights shone and sparkled and twinkled. Now, during the winter the Arctic regions come much farther south than they are marked on the map. Very few people know this, though you would think they could tell it by the ice in the jugs of a morning. And just when George and Jane were starting for the North Pole, the Arctic regions had come down very nearly as far as Forest Hill, so that, as the children walked on, it grew colder and colder, and presently they saw that the fields were covered with snow, and there were great icicles hanging from all the hedges and gates. And the Northern Lights still seemed some way off. They were crossing a very rough, snowy field when Jane first noticed the animals. There were white rabbits and white hares and all sorts and sizes of white birds, and some larger creatures in the shadows of the hedges that Jane was sure were wolves and bears. "Polar bears and Arctic wolves, of course I mean," she said, for she did not want George to think her stupid again. There was a great hedge at the end of this field, all covered with snow and icicles; but the children found a place where there was a hole, and as no bears or wolves seemed to be just in that part of the hedge, they crept through and scrambled out of the frozen ditch on the other side. And then they stood still and held their breath with wonder.