opinion as to whether or not it were likely that deer had stolen down from the wild country near at hand and nibbled the young firs in the night.

"It's perfectly possible," said Ussher. "I have five hundred acres myself, and then the Club owns a huge tract, and then there's some state land. You see we have hardly any neighbors except the Fenimers and they're eight or nine miles away."

"They live here?"

"In summer—and then only when Fred Fenimer is in funds, and that's not often. A precarious sort of existence, his—gambling in mining stocks, almost always in wrong. Hard on the daughter—wish some nice fellow would come along and marry her."

"He probably will," answered Riatt rather coldly. "It's beginning to snow again."

Ussher had just had his pond swept so that his guests could skate, and now couldn't imagine what he should provide for them for the afternoon, so that his thoughts were instantly and completely turned from Christine's problems to his own.

At the house they found every one waiting for lunch; Mrs. Almar and Christine chattering together on a window-seat as if they were the most intimate allies; Hickson reading his fourth morning paper, and Mrs. Ussher paying the profoundest attention to something Wickham was saying. She had suddenly wakened to the fact that he was having a wretched time and that he was after all her guest. But he interpreted her actions differently, and supposing that he was at last being appreciated, he had launched fearlessly forth upon the conversational sea. It was this spectacle that had drawn Christine and Nancy together, in their whisperings and giggles in the window.

"This perhaps will illustrate my meaning," he was saying rather loudly: "this is the difference in our outlook on life. If you say 'she dresses well,' you intend a compliment, but to me it is just the reverse. The idea is repellent to me that a woman wastes time, thought, money on her vanity, on decking her body—"

"One on you, my dear," whispered Christine.

"Isn't he tiresome?" answered Nancy, shutting her eyes.

"I thought he was your selection."

"Nobody's infallible, my dear. Besides, I telegraphed him not to accept the invitation, but he says he never got my message."

"Why does he think you sent it?"

"Because I couldn't trust myself—"

They grinned at each other.

With the entrance of Riatt and Ussher they went in to lunch, and there manoeuvering for places for the afternoon immediately began.

Hickson supposed that by starting early he could secure Christine's company. So he at once asked her what she was going to do, and before she had time to answer he had suggested that she skate, take a walk, or go sleighing with him. Ussher explained that the skating was spoiled, and Christine under cover of this diversion managed to avoid committing herself.

As a matter of fact her afternoon was arranged. She had told Laura Ussher a pathetic story of having to go over to her father's house, and look up an old fur coat of his which had been left behind when the house was shut for the winter. Mr. Fenimer was known to be rather an irritable parent where questions of his own comfort were concerned; it was not impossible that he would make himself disagreeable if his orders were not carried out. Laura did not inquire very closely, but she agreed that the best way for Christine to traverse the distance would be for Riatt to drive her over in the cutter. Riatt sat next to Laura at luncheon, and she put it to him, when the general conversation was loudest.

"Would you mind awfully driving poor little Christine over to her own place to get something or other for that horrid father of hers?"

Of course Riatt didn't say he did mind; as a matter of fact he didn't. He might even have enjoyed the prospect, if it hadn't been for the slight hint of compulsion about it.

"It's snowing, you know," he said.

"It doesn't amount to anything," answered his cousin. "But surely, Max, you're not afraid of a little snow, if she isn't!"

"Anything to oblige you, Laura," he said.

She did not quite like his tone, but felt she might safely leave the rest to Christine.

Mrs. Almar, unaware of these plots, settled down as soon as the meal was over, on a comfortable sofa large enough for two, with a box of cigarettes at her side and a current magazine that contained a new article on flying. The bird-like objects in the huge page of cloudy sky at once caught Max's eye. He came and bent over it and her, with his hands in his pockets. Still absorbed in it, she half-unconsciously swept aside her skirts, and he sat down beside her. She murmured a question—it was only about planes, and he answered it. Their heads were close together when Christine came down in her dark furs ready to go. The bells of Jack Ussher's fastest trotter were already to be heard tinkling at the door.

"Are you ready, Max?" said Laura, rather sharply.

"Laura expects every man to do his duty," murmured Nancy, without looking up.

Riatt expressed himself as entirely ready. Ussher lent him a fur cap and heavy gloves, warned him about the charmingly uncertain character of the horse; he and Christine were tucked into the sleigh, and they were off.

The snow, as Laura had said, did not seem to amount to much, the wind was behind them, the horse fast, the roads well packed. Riatt glanced down at his lovely companion, and felt his spirits rising. He smiled at her and she smiled back.

"I do hope you really feel like that," she said, "not sorry, I mean, to go on this expedition. Because it was extremely wicked of me to forget my father's coat, and this was obviously the occasion to make amends, but there was no one to take me—"

"No one to take you?"

"Oh, I suppose one of the grooms might have driven me over, but I should have hated that. There was no one else. Jack is much too selfish, and I wouldn't have gone with that Wickham person for anything in the world, even if he had ever driven a sleigh, which I am sure he hasn't."

"And how about Mr. Hickson?" Riatt asked. "Wasn't he a possibility?"

"What has Nancy Almar told you about her brother and me?"

"Nothing but what he told me himself in every look and word—that he loves you."

Christine sighed.

He smiled at her.

"And you're glad of it," he said.

"You mean I care for him?"

"I don't know anything about that, but you're glad he cares for you."

"You're utterly mistaken."

"How would you feel if another woman came and took him away from you to-morrow?"

"Took him away from me?" cried Christine, in a tone of surprise that made
Riatt laugh aloud.

"That's the wonderful thing about the so-called weaker sex," he said. "Saying 'no' seems to have no terrors to them at all. The timidest girl will refuse a man with no more trouble and anxiety than she would expend on refusing a dinner invitation; whereas men, with all their vaunted courage, are absolutely at the mercy of a determined woman. I have a friend who has just married a girl—whom he three times explicitly refused—only because she asked him to."

Miss Fenimer looked at him thoughtfully.

"Surely you exaggerate," she said.

He shook his head sadly.

"I wish I did," he returned, "but I assure you that is the great secret—that any man would