"No, not all," replied Hippy Wingate. "There are still a few of us left, and I promise to drink any extra chocolate you may happen to have."
"Don't give the animals sweets, Nora," exclaimed Reddy. "Especially the hippopotamus. He has a delicate stomach. You see, his keeper used to feed him chocolate drops three times a day."
Hippy grinned good-naturedly. He was a round roly-poly boy, famous for his appetite.
"Get away from here, Red Curls," he cried, hitting Reddy in the back with a snowball.
"Oh, you coward," cried Reddy, talking in a high falsetto voice, "to hit a man when his back is turned. I'll slap you for that," and he landed a snowball on Hippy's chest.
Hippy crouched behind the girls.
"I was a fool to throw at a pitcher," he cried; "he'll be sending me one of his curves in a minute."
"Hiding behind the ladies, hey?" returned Reddy, beginning to pitch snowballs at the girls.
"Let's wash his face," cried Nora to the other boys and girls coming up just then. They chased Reddy all the way to Nora's house and rolled him in the snow until he cried "enough."
Once inside Nora's cozy home, the coasters were soon doing ample justice to the good things to eat, which Nora's sister had prepared for them. Although all three of Anne's chums regretted deeply the unpleasant affair on the hill it was not mentioned again during the evening. Still, each girl felt in her heart that poor little Anne had, in Miriam Nesbit, a dangerous enemy.