Being cheerful, however, did not culminate in Dorothy’s finding the end of the path at once. And when she did so—coming suddenly out into an open place which she did not recognize—the fine snow was driving down so fast that it almost blinded her.
“This is not the road,” thought the girl, with the first shiver of fear that she had felt. “I have got turned about. I shall have to ask——”
Whom? Through the snow she could see no house—no building of any kind. She stood and listened for several moments, straining her ears to catch the faintest sound above the swish of the driving snow.
There was no other sound. The wind seemed to be rising, and the snow had already gathered to the depth of several inches while she had been rambling in the woods.
“Really,” thought Dorothy. “I never saw snow gather so fast before.”
She had little trouble at first following the path on the edge of the wood. She knew very well it was not the highway; but it must lead somewhere—and to somewhere she must very quickly make her way!
“If I don’t want to be snowed under completely—be a regular lost ‘babe in the wood’—I must arrive at some place very soon!” was her decision.
The path was a cart track. There was a half-covered worm-fence on one hand and the edge of the wood on the other. She had no idea whether she was traveling in the direction of Glenwood Hall, or exactly the opposite way.
“Swish! swish! swish!” hissed the snow. It had a sort of soothing sound; but the fact that she was lost in it was not a soothing idea at all to Dorothy.