“Why, to say the truth I asked Father this morning, and he said there was no one to go. You see Coachman is away for a holiday, and Sam is as busy as he can be—and there is no one else who can be trusted with a horse—and one cannot ask anybody to trudge five miles and back through the snow, though it is not at all deep.”
“And there is more snow coming, I fear,” says Mildred looking out at the grey, thick wintry sky—“it is awfully cold. Ah! there is a feeble little ray of sunshine struggling out! Well, I must go back to my occupation of measuring flannel for the old women’s petticoats—it is nice and warm for one’s fingers at any rate. And, Ally dear, tell Mother I’ll join her at the church as soon as ever I can. The keepers have brought us such lovely holly out of the woods—you never saw such wealth of berries. The wreaths will be splendid this year.”
And Mildred goes away humming a little Christmas carol, and bravely trying to forget the sore anxiety that is pressing on her heart, for the faraway soldier lover whose Christmas greeting she had so hoped to receive to-day.
“Isn’t she a trump?” cries Bertie, who can see and appreciate the effort his cousin is making. “I know she has half cried her eyes out when she was by herself, but she didn’t mean us to find it out. I say, Alice, I’ll have another try for that letter of hers, and get your candles too. Grey Plover has been roughed, and he’s as sure-footed as a goat—the snow is nothing to hurt now, and I’ll trot over to Appleton and be back in no time at all.”
“Oh, Bertie, don’t! Cousin Mildred said there was a snow-storm coming, and you might get lost like the people in the Swiss mountains”—
“Or the babes in the wood, eh? You little silly, don’t you think I’m man enough to take care of myself?”
And Master Bertie who is fifteen, and a regular sturdy specimen of a blue-eyed, sunburnt curly-haired English lad, draws himself up with great dignity and looks down patronizingly at his little sister.
Alice, of course, subsides, vanquished by this appeal, but she cannot help feeling some very uncomfortable qualms of conscience when it appears that she is to be the only person admitted into the young gentleman’s confidence.
“Don’t go bothering poor Mother about it—she always gets into such a funk, as if no one knew how to take care of themselves. And be sure not to say a word to Cousin Mildred—I want to surprise her by bringing her letter by the second post. And if Father asks where I am—oh! but that will be all right. I shall get back before he comes home from shooting”—and Bertie is gone before his sister has time to put into words the remonstrance she has been struggling to frame.