The first great January snowfall was heralded by a leaden sky and a surly looking sunrise, and early in the forenoon down came the white flakes, thick and fast, whirling this way and that, until the valley and the surrounding hills lay pure and soft under their fairy covering.
In the afternoon Miss Cotton took her sewing, put a shawl over her head, and ran over to the Hamiltons'. She was lonely, and, besides, she had some news to tell.
"Here's 'Liza comin'," announced Maggie to the group sitting around the dining room stove. "Chuck full o' news, too, I know. I can tell by the way she's hoppin' along. Old Mother Fraser's jist gone away from there; she's been tellin' her something new about Mr. Egerton, I guess!"
She ran out to the hall and flung open the door. "Hello, 'Liza! Come along in; we're all here, Sarah'n all. It was too snowy for her to go to school. My, but you needn't bring all the snow in; leave a little outdoors for sleighin'."
"If you weren't such a lazy poke, Maggie Hamilton, you'd have a path shovelled to your gate; it looks like the track to a wigwam!"
"It's jist too bad, 'Liza," said Mrs. Hamilton as she swept the snow from her visitor's feet and skirts. "If I've told them girls once to sweep that path, I've told them a dozen times. Where's Mary Fraser been?"
"Up to see old Duncan Polite." Miss Cotton spread her cold hands over the stove, and surveyed the four girls sharply. "My, but you're pretendin' to be awful busy! An' Maggie sewin', too, as I'm alive! The poor old man's got brownkaties, she says."
Sarah covered her face with her French Grammar and giggled.
"Oh yes, smarty! You've got to snicker at somethin'. I s'pose they've learned you some new-fangled way o' sayin' it at the High School. But brownkaties is good enough for ordinary folks, an' bad enough, too. An' that's what the poor old fellow's got anyhow. They had a doctor out from Mapletown, an' Betsey Neil's been there three nights. He's had a cold all fall, Mrs. Fraser says, an' wouldn't look after it."
"Dear, dear," said Mrs. Hamilton in distress. "One o' you girls must run up to-morrow with some beef-tea or something. That's too bad. Sit close to the fire, 'Liza, it's dreadful cold."