Snow-shoeing is one of the national sports of Canada, in which most Canadians, big and little, are proficient. Marjorie and her cousin were no exception to the rule, and Jackie proved a very apt pupil. He soon learned to avoid striking one snow-shoe against the other, and fell quickly into that long, easy swing, which makes the snowy miles go by so quickly. Sometimes the three children tramped on the broad, frozen river, but that was a cold place when there was any wind, so they generally chose the hill-roads or the woods. Nothing, Dora thought, could be more beautiful than those woods in winter, with the white drifts around the grayish tree-trunks, the firs and hemlocks rising like green islands out of a snowy sea, and the wonderful tracery of brown boughs against the pale blue of the sky. Once, Mr. and Mrs. Merrithew went with them for a moonlight tramp, and that was something never to be forgotten.

It was just after a heavy snowfall, and the evergreens were weighed down with a white covering that sparkled and glittered as with innumerable jewels. Another favourite amusement was coasting,—not tobogganing, but good, old-fashioned coasting, generally on College Hill, but sometimes down the steep bank of the river. Coasting parties were frequent, and it was a pretty sight to see the hill dotted with blanket-coated and toqued or tam-o'-shantered figures, and pleasant to hear the merry voices and laughter as the sleds skimmed swiftly down the road.

The winters in Eastern Canada, though cold, are wonderfully bright and clear, and the air is so free from dampness that one does not realize how cold it sometimes becomes, unless one consults the thermometer. Canadians, as a rule, spend a great deal of time in the open air in winter as well as summer, and are as hardy a race as can be found anywhere, but when they are indoors they like their houses good and warm,—no half-measures, no chilly passages and draughty bedrooms for them!

Mr. Merrithew did not keep horses, but occasionally he would hire a big three-seated sleigh and take the family for a delightful spin. They would all be warmly wrapped in woollens and furs, and snuggled in buffalo-robes; the bells would jingle merrily, the snow would "skreak" under the horses' feet, and the white world slip by them like a dream.

One day, about the middle of February, Mrs. Merrithew announced, at breakfast, that it was high time for the drive to Hemlock Point, which Mr. Merrithew had been promising them all winter. As the latter quite agreed with this idea, they decided to go on the following morning, spend a long day with the friends they always visited there, and return by moonlight. Hemlock Point was somewhere between ten and twenty miles up-river,—it does not always do to be too exact,—and their friends lived in a quaint old farmhouse, on high ground, well back from the river-bank.

That evening, when they sat in the Den after lessons were done, Marjorie told Dora about the good folk who lived there,—an old bachelor farmer, the most kind-hearted and generous of men, but as bashful as a boy; his two unmarried sisters, who managed his house and thought they managed him, but really spoilt him to his heart's content; and an orphan niece, who had lived with them for several years, and who was the only modern element in their lives. She graphically described the old loom, the big and little spinning-wheels, and the egg-shell china, till Dora was as anxious as Jackie for to-morrow to come.

The three-seated sleigh and the prancing horses were at the door of the Big Brick House by eight the next morning, for the drive would be long and the load heavy, and it was well to be early on the way. The girls and Jackie wore their blanket-suits,—Dora's and Jackie's crimson and Marjorie's bright blue,—and Mrs. Merrithew herself, snugly wrapped in furs, brought a grand supply of extra cloaks and shawls. She was always prepared for any emergency. Mr. Merrithew said that he never knew her fail to produce pins, rope, a knife, and hammer and nails, if they were needed. But the hammer and nails she repudiated, and said it was twine, not rope, she carried! The sky was a little overcast when they started, but the prospect of a snow-storm did not daunt them in the least.

The bells, of which there were a great many on the harness, kept up a musical, silvery accompaniment to the conversation, as the horses swung at a good speed along the level. When the hills began to rise, the pace slackened, and the passengers had a better chance to enjoy the beauties spread on both sides of the road.

"But oh, you ought to see it in summer!" Marjorie said, when Dora praised the varied and lovely landscapes. "There are so many things yet for you to see all around here. You will have to stay two or three years more at least!"

But Dora laughed at this.

"What about all the things there are for you to see in Montreal?" she said. "What about the Ice Palace, and—"

"Please tell about the Ice Palace, Dora," Jack interrupted. "That must be a gorlious sight!"

So Dora tried to give her cousins some idea of the great palace of glittering ice, and the hundreds of snow-shoers, in bright costumes and carrying torches, gathered together to storm this fairylike fortress.

"It must be fine," said Marjorie, when the story was done, "but I'd rather storm Hemlock Point, and get fried chicken and buttermilk as the spoils of war."

Marjorie, being a tremendous home-girl, generally tried to change the subject if Dora made any allusions to a possible visit of Marjorie alone to Montreal. She could not bear the thought of parting with Dora, but to part with mother and Daddy and Jack would be three times worse!

The last part of the road was decidedly hilly, and the horses took such advantage of Mr. Merrithew's consideration for their feelings, that Jackie, lulled by the slow motion and the sound of the bells, fell asleep against his mother's shoulder, and knew no more till he woke on a couch in Miss Grier's sitting-room. The oldest Miss Grier—whom every one called Miss Prudence—was bustling about, helping Marjorie and Dora off with their things, and giving advice to Miss Alma, who was hastening to start a fire in the great old-fashioned Franklin. Miss Dean, the niece, was taking off Mrs. Merrithew's overboots, in spite of her polite protests. Jackie's eyes were open for some moments before any one noticed him; then he startled them by saying, in perfectly wide-awake tones:

"I think, Miss Lois Dean, you are the very littlest lady in the world!"

Miss Dean, who certainly could not well be smaller and be called grown-up at all, and whose small head was almost weighted down by its mass of light hair, looked at her favourite with twinkling eyes.

"Never mind, Jackie, the best goods are often done up in small parcels; and I'm big enough to hold you on my lap while I tell you stories, which is the main thing, isn't it?"

"Yes, indeed," Jack cried, jumping up to hug her, which resulted in the pretty hair getting loosened from its fastenings and tumbling in wild confusion around the "littlest lady," where she sat on the floor.

"Now you are a fairy godmother! Now you are a fairy godmother!" exclaimed Jackie, dancing around her.

"Then I will put a charm upon you at once," Lois said. "No more dancing, no more noise, no more anything, until we get the wraps all off and put away; then you and I will go and—fry chicken—and sausages—for dinner!"

The last part of the sentence was whispered in Jack's ear, and caused him to smile contentedly, and to submit without a murmur to the process of unwrapping.

After dinner,—which did great credit to Lois and her assistant,—they gathered around the Franklin in the sitting-room, with plates of "sops-of-wine" and golden pippins within easy reach, and Mr. Grier and Mr. Merrithew talked farming and politics, while Miss Prudence recounted any episodes of interest that had taken place at or near Hemlock Point during the past year.

Mrs. Merrithew, who had spent her summers here as a girl, knew every one for miles around, and loved to hear the annals of the neighbourhood, told in Miss Prudence's picturesque way, with an occasional pithy comment from Miss Alma.

Dora sat, taking in with eager eyes the view of hill and intervale, island and ice-bound river; then turning back to the cosey interior, with its home-made carpet, bright curtains, and large bookcase with glass doors.

After a little while Lois, who saw that the children were growing weary of sitting still, proposed a stroll through the house, to which they gladly consented. Katherine asked if she might go with them, and they left "the enchanted circle around the fire," and crossed the hall to the "best parlour,"—which Miss Prudence always wished to throw open in Mrs. Merrithew's honour, and which the latter always refused to sit in, because, as she frankly said, it gave her the shivers. This was not on account of any ill-taste in the furnishing, but because it was always kept dark and shut up, and Mrs. Merrithew said it could not be made cheery all of a sudden. The children, however, loved the long room, and the mysterious feeling it gave them when they first went in, and had to grope their way to the windows, draw back the curtains, and put up the yellow Venetian blinds, letting the clear, wintry light into this shadowy domain. This light brought out the rich, dark colours of the carpet, and showed the treasures of chairs and tables that would have made a collector's mouth water. There was a round table of polished mahogany in the centre of the room, a tiny butternut sewing-table in one corner, and against the wall, on opposite sides of the room, two rosewood tables, with quaint carved legs, and feet of shining brass. On the tables lay many curious shells, big lumps of coral, and rare, many-coloured seaweeds,—for there had been a sailor-uncle in the family,—annuals and beauty-books in gorgeous bindings, albums through which the children looked with never-failing delight, work-boxes and portfolios inlaid with mother-of-pearl; almost all the treasures of the family, in fact, laid away here in state, like Jean Ingelow's dead year, "shut in a sacred gloom."

When this room had been inspected and admired, they lowered the blinds, drew the curtains, and left it again to its solitude. The rest of the house was much less awe-inspiring, but it was all delightful. The loom, now seldom or never used, stood in one corner of the kitchen. Not far away was the big spinning-wheel. Miss Dean tried to teach them to spin, and when they found it was not so easy as it looked, gave them a specimen of how it should be done that seemed almost magical. There is, indeed, something that suggests magic about spinning,—the rhythmically stepping figure, the whirling brown wheel, the rolls of wool, changed by a perfectly measured twirl and pull into lengths of snow-white yarn, and the soothing, drowsy hum, the most restful sound that labour can produce.

Then there was the up-stairs to visit. The chief thing of interest there was the tiny flax-wheel which stood in the upper hall, and which certainly looked, as Jack said, as if it ought to belong to a fairy godmother. In the attic, great bunches of herbs hung drying from the rafters, and the air was sweet with the scent of them. There were sage, summer-savoury, sweet marjoram, sweet basil, mint, and many more, with names as fragrant as their leaves. On the floor, near one of the chimneys, was spread a good supply of butternuts, and strings of dried apples stretched from wall to wall at the coolest end of the one big room.

"If I lived in this house," Dora said, "I would come up here often and write,—try to write, I mean!"

"I come up here often and read," Miss Dean said, with a quick glance of comprehension at the little girl's eager face. "I love it! And sometimes, when I feel another way and it's not too cold, I put up one blind in the best parlour, and sit in there."

"I wish you were coming down to sit in mother's den, and read—and talk—and everything!" said Marjorie, and the others echoed the wish.

"So I am, some time or other," Lois answered. "Mrs. Merrithew has asked me, and now it's just a question of how soon Aunt Prudence can spare me. That may be next week,—or it may be next winter!"

"It may be for years and it may be for ever," Dora quoted, laughing, and Jackie added, "and then—when you do come—we will make you a Son and Daughter of Canada right away!"

The search for the egg-shell china took them back to the sitting-room, where Lois begged Miss Prudence to exhibit this most fragile of her belongings. With natural pride, that lady unlocked a china-closet, and brought out specimens of the beautiful delicate ware which their grandmother had brought over with her from Ireland, and of which, in all these years, only three articles had been broken. It certainly was exquisite stuff, delicately thin, of a rich cream-colour, and with gilt lines and tiny wreaths of pink and crimson roses.

"I thought we would have them out for tea," Miss Alma suggested, but Mrs. Merrithew, with three children, all rather hasty in their movements, to look after, begged her not to think of such a thing.

"Your white and gold china is pretty enough for any one;" she said, "and, my dear Prudence, if you are determined to give us tea after that big dinner, we will have to ask for it soon, or we will be spending most of the night on the road."

"Dear, dear!" said Miss Prudence, putting back her treasures tenderly, "it does seem as if you'd been here about half an hour, and I do hate to have you go! But I know how you feel about being out late with the children, and you won't stay all night. Come along, Alma, let's hustle up some tea, and let Lois talk to Mrs. Merrithew awhile."

And "hustle" they certainly did, spreading a board that groaned with the good old-fashioned dainties, for the cooking of which Miss Prudence was noted throughout the country. Then the horses were brought to the door, tossing their heads in haste to be off, wraps were snugly adjusted, good-byes said many times, and they were off.

"I believe Grier has given these horses nothing but oats all day," Mr. Merrithew muttered, as the pretty beasts strained and tugged in their anxiety to run down-hill; but when it came to the up-hill stretches, they soon sobered down, and were content with a reasonable pace. Warm and cosey, nestled against his mother, Jackie soon slept as before; but the others, with rather a reckless disregard of their throats, sang song after song, in spite of the frosty air, and dashed up to the door of the Big Brick House, at last, to the sound of: