It was a delightful day for a sleigh-ride, for every bush and tree was covered with a white fleece of snow, and the morning sun added a tiny sparkle to every crystal. A thicket of spruce was changed to a grove of towering white cones and an alder swamp to a fantastic fairyland. It was all new to Frank, and as he drove away with that bright and vivacious girl for a companion it is needless to say he enjoyed it to the utmost.
"I had no idea your town was so hemmed in by mountains," he said after they started and he had a chance to look around; "why, you are completely shut in, and such grand ones, too! They are more beautiful than the White Mountains and more graceful in shape."
"They are all of that," answered Alice, "and yet at times they make me feel as if I was shut in, away from all the world. We who see them every day forget their beauty and only feel their desolation, for a great tree-clad mountain is desolate in winter, I think. At least it is apt to reflect one's mood. I suppose you have travelled a great deal, Mr. Nason?"
"Not nearly as much as I ought to," he answered, "for the reason that I can't find any one I like to go with me. My mother and sisters go away to some watering-place every summer and stay there, and father sticks to business. I either dawdle around where the folks are summers, or stay in town and hate myself, if I can't find some one to go off on my yacht with me. The fact is, Miss Page," he added mournfully, "I have hard work to kill time. I can get a little party to run to Newport or Bar Harbor in the summer, and that is all. I should like to go to Florida or the West Indies in the winter, or to Labrador or Greenland summers, but I can't find company."
Alice was silent for a moment, for the picture of a young man complaining because he had nothing to do but spend his time and money was new to her.
"You are to be pitied," she said at last, with a tinge of sarcasm, "but still, there are just a few who would envy you."
He made no reply, for he did not quite understand whether she meant to be sarcastic or not. They rode along in silence for a time, and then Alice pointed to a small square brown building just ahead, almost hid in bushes, and said:
"Do you see that magnificent structure we are coming to, and do you notice its grand columns and lofty dome? If you had been a country boy you would recollect seeing a picture of it in the spelling-book. Take a good look at it, for that is a temple of knowledge, and it is there I teach school!"
Frank was silent, for this time the sarcastic tone in her voice was more pronounced. When they reached it he stopped and said quietly, "Please hold the reins. I want to look into the room where you spend your days."
He took a good long look, and when he returned he said, "So that is what you call a temple, is it? And it was in there the little girl wanted to kiss you because you looked happy?" And then as they drove on he added, "Do you know, I've thought of that pretty little touch of feeling a dozen times since you told about it, and when I go home I shall send a box of candy to you and ask you to do me the favor of giving it to that little girl."