In a few minutes the child was tripping downstairs, smart and cosy in her red coat, hat, and muff, with all the importance of her nine years.
"Go the shortest way—you know; keep to the path across the moor," continued her mother, "or you might fall over bits of rock under the snow."
"Do you know, Mother, I always wonder, when there's snow, where all the grass is and what's underneath? All killed by the freeze?"
"Oh no. The snow keeps everything nice and warm," replied her mother with a kiss.
Davis, the portly butler, advanced and opened the front door.
"Being above the snow doesn't keep me nice and warm, Mother," called back Rosella as she ran laughing down the steps into the icy north wind, which blew her dark hair out to its full length and heightened the warm colour in her cheeks.
"Make haste, and you'll be there in half-an-hour." Mrs. Silverton returned to her boudoir, and standing at the bow-window followed with loving eyes the graceful little red figure, until at a bend in the road it turned, gaily waved a farewell, and was lost to sight.
When Rosella reached the moor the high wind was against her, blowing her frock between her knees and making her eyes water. "This way will be very difficult and unpleasant," she thought to herself. "I'd far rather go round by the hill, and then, too, I could see if Grandfather has got the Snow Castle on the top finished and ready for to-morrow—I forgot about that when Mother said to go across the moor. I should so like to see it—I wonder if I might!"
She stood irresolute for a moment, then left the straight path and started running, in order to save time, in the other direction: thus making for the hill which she intended to climb.
The sun became obscured, and what was worse, down from the leaden yellow sky tiny snowflakes began to flutter as though in play, rapidly increasing in size and volume until, as if by magic, Rosella found herself enveloped in a blinding snowstorm that obscured the landscape, and decided her to return home. But returning home was not so easy as turning herself round, and she soon had the growing conviction that no matter which way she turned she was lost, utterly lost: for all that she could see was that she no longer seemed to be dressed in red, but was thickly coated in white.