"Oh dear" cried Mab. "He is gone forever!"
"Yes," spoke Hal, quietly, and then he put his arms around his little sister.
But don't you feel badly, children. We know something Hal and Mab do not know, and we'll keep it a secret from them until it is time for the surprise.
The two Blake children were so sorry their doggie had been lost through the ice, that their father thought it best to take them home.
"We will have another skating lesson to-morrow," he said. "But this shows you how dangerous air holes are."
"What is an air hole in the ice, Daddy?" asked Hal.
"I'll tell you," said Mr. Blake. This interested Mab, and she stopped crying. Besides, if you cry when it's cold, the tears may freeze on your cheeks, like little pearls, and fall off."
"An air hole," said Mr. Blake, as he walked on home with the children, "is a place where the ice has not frozen solidly. Sometimes it may be because there is a warm spring in that part of the pond, or a spring that bubbles up, and keeps the water moving. And you know moving or running water will not freeze, except in very, very cold weather.
"But always be careful of air holes, for the ice around them is easily broken, and you might go through."
"Poor Roly-Poly!" sighed Mab. "I wish he had been careful."