"Hurry up," called out Howard, as he spun along. "What the mischief became of you? We thought you had gone to hunt up Sir John Franklin and crew." "Hurry down, I should say you meant," answered Ellis, guiding his sled skilfully around the curve, and springing to his feet. "I waited for the rest of you; thought you were coming back." "No," said Howard, "we just _ain't_. We appointed a committee to find out how many were frozen up altogether entirely, and found that every single one of us were; so we're going in to the library fire to get thawed out by tea-time." "All right," said Ellis, shouldering his sled; "Howard, where's your skates?" "Oh, bother! they're at the top of that awful hill. Never mind; you walk on slowly, and I'll run back and get them." The boys obeyed, and Ellis Holbrook was just swinging open the little gate that led to Mr. Minturn's grounds, when Howard called, as he ran down the hill, "Hold on! Don't go that way, it will lead you right through the deepest snow there is; take the big gate." And by the time he reached them, panting and breathless, they were at the big gate. "This is jolly," said Will Bailey, throwing himself into a great arm-chair before the glowing fire. "My! I believe I'm a snowball." "You'd have been an icicle if you had gone the way Ellis was leading you; why, the snow is so high," said Howard, raising his hand almost on a level with his head. Ellis laughed. "I'm sure I thought I was going right," he said. "I must have been thinking of yesterday's lesson in Sunday school,--'Enter ye in at the strait gate.'" "Ho!" said Will Bailey; "for that matter, one gate is as straight as the other." "You don't understand the Bible, my boy," said Howard, laying his hand on Will's shoulder with a provoking little pat, "or you'd know that strait means narrow." "I'll bet a dollar that you were no wiser yourself until father explained the verse yesterday," said Ellis, laughing. Tip, meantime, stood apart flushed and silent; he knew about the Sunday lesson, and remembered the solemn talk which Mr. Holbrook gave them; and remembered how he urged them, while they were young, to enter into that strait gate; he felt shocked and troubled at the sound of Ellis's careless words. "I know one thing," he said abruptly. "Do you?" said Will Bailey in a mocking tone. "That's very strange!" Will felt above Tip, and took care to let him know it. Ellis turned a quick, indignant glance on him; then spoke to Tip in a kind and interested tone: "What were you going to say, Tip." "That, if I were the minister's son, I wouldn't make fun of the Bible." Ellis's face was crimson in an instant. "What do you mean by that?" he asked haughtily. "Just what I say," was Tip's cool reply. "Do you pretend to say that _I_ make fun of the Bible?" "Humph! Didn't I hear you?" "No," said Ellis, in a heat, "you _didn't_! and I'd thank you not to say so neither."