This was balm to Pat's hurt vanity. Perhaps she couldn't skate as well as the others, but she guessed Jim Archer knew she could throw a snowball as straight and as hard as any boy! Anyway, Garrett Lee was too conceited! So that night, as she slept cuddled down in the big four-posted bed, she dreamed that she stood alone on the frosty breastwork of the fort she had helped build and by an onslaught of snowballs, thrown with unerring aim, drove Garrett Lee and his army to complete and ignominious surrender!
Poor Pat--the next day was to bring to her pride a sad fall!
CHAPTER XV
PAT'S PRIDE AND ITS FALL
The next morning a bright sun peeped up over the hills touching field and lake, trees and house-tops with a frost of diamonds. At an early hour hungry boys and girls were demanding their breakfast "quick" and were hurling orders over the banister at the sleepy Kitchen Police, toiling below.
The snow-ball fight ended in a complete rout of Garrett's army, which put Pat in high spirits, and, although it had not been quite like her dream of the night before, Jim Archer had said to her, to her secret joy:
"Say, you throw as good as a boy!"
The remainder of the morning was spent playing hockey and coasting; the boys allowing the girls to race the bobs down the hill. Renée, quite by herself, steered the beautiful Madcap twice to victory! Perhaps never in her life had she felt so keenly alive or so happy! She stood looking over the little lake and the surrounding hills and drawing in long breaths of the frosty air. Its keenness made her cheeks and fingertips tingle, put a ringing note in the youthful voices around her and an added brightness into happy eyes!
"Let's all just skate this afternoon--no races or anything like that!" declared Peggy at luncheon and the suggestion met with instant approval.
"Oh, don't you wish we were just coming? Did you ever know days to go by so fast?" lamented one of the others.