Her small black eyes screwed themselves into two glittering points as she examined the newcomer.

"He'll do!" she ejaculated; then, with a half-caressing, half-threatening, "You'll get murdered if there's a word out o' you," addressed to an apparent roll of cloth tucked among spruce branches a few feet from the ground, she stepped out by the snake fence.

"Hello, mister!"

The fat young man bobbing over the "thank-you-ma'ams" of the snowy road, pulled himself up with a jerk in his small sleigh drawn by a long-legged mare.

"Coronation! Where did that noise come from? Hello, wood-lark," as he observed the little girl peeping at him through the fence, "is there a hawk in your nest?"

"Who be you?" she asked.

"I've got an awful pretty name," he replied, flicking his whip over the snow-bank beside him, "too pretty to tell."

"Who be you?" she asked, pertinaciously.

"Ever hear tell of a creamery shark?"

"I didn't know as sharks favoured cream," she said, soberly.