"Yes--a regular prairie-schooner of a sleigh. Holds a dozen of us, packed like sardines, so nobody can get cold. We take hot soapstones and rugs and robes, and we go only twelve miles, to a farmhouse where we get a hot supper--oysters and hot biscuit and maple-syrup, and all sorts of good things. You must go."
"If I only could!" sighed Evelyn. "I'm so afraid they won't think I can."
"They will, if you think you can," asserted Jeff. "You're up to it, aren't you? You needn't do a thing. Six of the crowd are going to give a little play. I'll get the load started home early, and we'll come back flying. Be here by midnight at the latest. It'll do you good, I know it will."
"O Mrs. Churchill!" breathed Evelyn, as Charlotte appeared from the hall.
"O Evelyn Lee!" answered Charlotte, smiling back at the eager face. "Yes, I heard most of it, Jeff, for I was coming down-stairs, and you weren't exactly whispering. It's an enticing plan, isn't it?"
"Of course it is. And it's magnificent weather for the affair. Not cold a bit and no wind; moonlight due if no clouds come up. Evelyn can't get cold. I'll keep her done up to the tip of her nose, and be so devoted nobody else will have a chance to worry her. Say she may go. Don't you see the disappointment would be worse for her than the trip?"
"You artful pleader, I'm not sure but it would. If Doctor Churchill agrees, Evelyn, I'll let you try it. On one condition, Jeff--that you really do get back by midnight. For a girl who has been put to bed for weeks at nine that's late enough."
Evelyn went about all day with a lighter step than her friends had yet seen her assume.
"Now remember, I trust her absolutely to your care," Charlotte said to Jeff that evening, as he appeared, his arms full of accessories for making his charge comfortable.
Evelyn, in furs and heavy coat, smiled at her escort. "I'm not a bit afraid," she said. "Oh, what a beautiful night! The moon is out. Is that the sleigh coming up the street now, with all those horns? What fun!"