“Oh, no, Charlotte, you won’t do that—promise me you won’t. Do, Charlotte!” Jerry entreated.
“Oh, well, I don’t suppose I shall. I should not like not to show Herr Märklestatter I had done my best. He used to be so kind to me; he is kind to me still. Only,” and again Charlotte sighed profoundly, “I really don’t know how I shall bear the disappointment and the mortification!”
Jerry did not sigh,—he was never very demonstrative,—but his face grew hard and stern, and he pressed his lips tightly together in a way that was usual with him when he was making up his mind to something.
For Jerry was making up his mind to something, and for the next few days he was silently thinking it over wondering how he was to carry it out.
The predicted snow fell but slightly. But the frost continued and increased. By the middle of December there was no talk among the boys on holiday afternoons but of skating. And one Tuesday evening, in the Waldrons’ school-room there was great excitement about an expedition to come off the following day, which was as usual a half-holiday.
“Can’t you come, Charlotte?” asked Arthur. For Charlotte, “one sister of her brothers,” was, as was natural, a great adept at skating, and even at less feminine recreations.
“I wish I could,” she said. “I’d give anything to go; but I can’t. It’s this extra work for the end of the term that I must get on with.”
It was the German composition. A glance at the expression of her face told it to Jerry.
“It’s out Gretham way, isn’t it?” he asked suddenly.
“Yes,” Arthur replied; “about half-a-mile past the first Silverthorns lodge.”