"Come, Polly, I've a seat for you," cried Alexia, just flying into the biggest barge. "Do hurry, Polly."
"Polly," called Jasper. She could see that he stood by one of the sleighs, beckoning to her.
Meantime, Phronsie had been borne off by old Mr. King, and Polly could hear her say, "Somebody get Polly a seat, please."
"I considered it a promise," Livingston Bayley was saying under cover of the gay confusion. "And accordingly I prepared myself. But of course if you do not wish to fulfill it, Miss Pepper, why, I"—
"Oh, no, no," cried Polly hastily, "if you really thought I promised you, Mr. Bayley, I will go, thank you," and without a backward glance at the others, she moved off to the gay little cutter where the horse stood shaking his bells impatiently.
"Where's Polly?" somebody called out. And somebody else peered down the row of vehicles, and answered, "Mr. Bayley's driving her."
And they were all off.
Polly kept saying to herself, "Oh, dear, dear, what could I have said to make him think I would go with him?" And Livingston Bayley smiled happily to himself under the collar of his driving coat; and the sparkling snow cut into little crystals by the horse's flying feet, dashed into their faces, and the scraps of laughter and merry nonsense from the other sleighs, made Polly want nothing so much as to cower down into the corner of the big fur robes, for a good cry.
And before she knew it, Mr. Bayley had turned off, leaving the gay procession on the main road.
"Oh!" cried Polly then, and starting forward, "Mr. Bayley, why, we're off the road!"