“Oh, let me board with you instead of going to Florida. I never have had any winter sports!” Peggy’s voice was coaxing. “We’ll have skiing down the hills, that hill where you saved my life, Dal,—and skating, and ice-boating and everything on the bay!”
Even Leslie and Sarita, who were more interested in lessons than Peggy, brightened at the thought. “Poor me!” exclaimed Sarita. “I’d have to go home and miss it all!”
“Vacation, Sarita,” suggested Peggy, “the Christmas vacation.”
“We’ll skate on our little lake, Peggy,” said Dalton, “as if it were already decided, and we can have a dog-sled to take us to town,—”
“Crazy!” laughed Leslie. “But, Beth, I believe that Dal is in earnest.”
“Wait till he has fires to make some morning when it is below zero, ice to break, water to carry and everything frozen up.”
“Not much worse than a furnace to take care of, Beth,” said the man of the house. “We’ll have a big fireplace in one room and a big heater somewhere, a shed full of coal, and wood on the place,—think it over. I’ve got to work.” Whistling a little, Dalton went back to help and direct.
“Dalton just loves this,” said Leslie, “but look, Beth, here comes Mr. Tudor.”
With a salute to everybody, Evan Tudor stopped first to speak to Dalton, then joined the other group with greetings. Peggy, remembering her impulsive entrance of the previous day, bowed sweetly, but with dignity, while Leslie asked if he had been annoyed by the sounds of building so early.
“I slept as if I should never waken this morning and I have only just eaten my breakfast. There must be something in this air, as advertised! I prowled around a while last night, enjoying the woods and the shore. At this rate, it looks as if you would have a house up in no time.”