Rex was shouting from the hall. Without another pause the locket was out of its case, slipped on a ribbon, and the ribbon tied round Beata's neck. Was it dread of Rex's scorn or of mamma's observation that made Beata slip it under her little fur boa as she ran down the old oaken stairs?
"Rex, you've no overcoat," she said, as they hurried together through the snow, which lay like a soft white blanket over garden and park. That hidden locket filled her mind so full that she must speak about it, and she artfully began to talk about dress, to work the conversation round to that beloved topic. But all in vain.
"Overcoat!" echoed Rex, in high disdain, swinging Beata's dainty little skates and his own together. "Who wants an overcoat? The Spartans never wore 'em."
"But then you're not a Spartan."
"Wish I was." Rex was beginning ancient history, and had a Grecian craze just now. "Never mind, I mean to harden just as if I was;" but he couldn't help a shiver all the same.
Beata tried again. "Doesn't the snow look like pearls, Rex?"
"Can't say I see it. Oh, you're thinking about that swell locket of yours. Now in Sparta they never allowed them to wear bosh like that."
"Then Sparta was a stupid place," began Beata, hotly; but they came round the corner by the lake, and the sight there put everything else out of both their minds.
Such a pretty sight! Ice as smooth and clear as sweeping could make it; white banks of snow gleaming like a wreath about it; crowds of gayly dressed ladies and knickerbockered gentlemen skimming about, or being pushed in chairs; the ring of a hundred skates keeping time to the band that was playing in the rustic boat-house; and another crowd of people, but not gayly dressed, standing and looking on at it all.
"What a rabble!" said Beata. "These aren't only village people and servants; some of them look like gypsies. Look at that woman in the red shawl—she's a tramp."