"This hasn't gone by yet! To-night we're going to toast marshmallows!" put in Bob Slocum.
"And have a good sing! We always end a picnic that way!" explained Peggy to Pat.
"And breakfast bright and early to-morrow, so that we will be all packed in time for the----"
"Lightning mail train!" Garrett added to his mother's injunction.
Mrs. Lee was never happier than when she was with her "boys and girls!" She loved each and every one of them as though they had all been hers from babyhood. She watched them now as they trooped away toward the lake, skates jingling over their arms. Something within her quivered with pardonable pride as her eyes rested for a moment on Garrett's manly young figure striding on ahead of the others. And when Peggy's voice, always boyishly loud, reached her ears as she shouted back to one of the other girls, her mother shook her head and laughed: "Oh, Peggy child, what a tomboy!"
For Pat the skating was much more fun, now, when there were no races! More accustomed to her skates she managed to get over the ice in better and easier fashion than she had on the day before. She was pleasantly conscious, too, that she made a rather pretty picture in her scarlet sweater and tam-o'-shanter--several of the girls had declared that they were going to immediately make red tams.
"Let's have a turn, Pat!" and Garrett Lee extended two warmly mittened hands in genial invitation. So Pat linked her arms with his and together they flew over the glittering stretch. With her balance supported by Garrett's strong grasp she skated easily; as they sped along down the length of the lake the wind whipped her breath and sent the blood bounding through her veins!
At the end of the lake they stopped "to take in air," as Garrett put it.
"Let's skate down there," cried Pat, pointing to the Inlet just beyond. There a narrow gorge, cutting deeply through the hillsides, let into the lake. Garrett knew that, because of its steep banks, its changing depths of water and strong eddies, the ice there was very unsafe.
"Oh, no, it's dangerous there! We never go into the Inlet, even in the summer! That's a rule!"