“Ye're 'most home,” declared the driver, “an' soon's I've landed ye I'll hev ter scoot.”
“But you'll have to take Arabella home; she lives 'way over the other side of the town,” insisted Patricia.
“Oh, no, no, he won't!” said Arabella. “I'd rather walk all the way than have Aunt Matilda know that I've been sleighing.”
“Why, how funny!” and Patricia stared in surprise.
“It's funnier now than it would be when Aunt Matilda found it out.”
“Why?” Patricia asked.
“Because,” said Arabella, “whenever I've been out, and she thinks I've taken cold, she boils some old herb tea, and makes me drink it hot, and I have to be bundled in blankets, and she makes such a fuss that I wish I hadn't gone anywhere at all.”
“I guess you'd better not tell her,” Patricia advised, to which Arabella replied:
“I just don't intend to.”
And while Dorothy and Nancy were standing before a blazing fire in the sitting-room at the stone house, recounting the beauties of the sky, the branches fringed with glittering icicles, the squirrels that raced across the hard crust of snow, and indeed, every lovely bit of road or forest which they had seen, Arabella, shivering as she hurried along, saw the bright lights, and rushed past the great gate, across the avenue and in at her own driveway. She hoped that every one would be talking when she entered. She intended to join in the conversation, and she thought if she could manage to talk very, very fast, Aunt Matilda might not ask where she had been. But she did.