NEXT morning Judith could scarcely move; her limbs were stiff from the unaccustomed exercise and one shoulder was bruised and wrenched from her fall, so Mrs. Nairn kept her in bed all morning and gave her much petting and mothering.

The plans for the afternoon had included a skating party on the river, ending with a drive out to the Nairns’ summer cottage, which had been opened in preparation for this week of winter sports. A neighbouring farmer’s wife had promised to have a roaring fire ready for the skaters when they should appear about five o’clock, and the farmer himself was to meet them at the river with his big sleigh. Clearly Judith could not skate to-day, so other plans were made for her. Nancy, of course, must be with the skaters, since she was the hostess, but Sally May insisted on staying at home with Judith. Naturally this embarrassed Judith, for she knew that Sally May loved skating, and an outdoor party of this kind would be a novelty to a Southerner. Finally Jack talked things over with his mother, and, as Judith declared that she was well enough to go, Mrs. Nairn agreed that she should drive with Jack to the cottage and he would leave her there with Mme. Berthier, while he rejoined the skaters on the river.

Tim, to Judith’s disappointment, declared that he had an engagement and couldn’t come.

“I can’t think what’s happening to Tim,” grumbled Nancy as they changed into warm clothes for their long drive; “usually he’s a dear about helping to entertain, but he’s not a bit like himself, he looks so glum and ‘grouchy.’”

“Oh, Nancy!” Judith protested, “I don’t see how you can say such a thing! I think he looks just lovely!”

“Just lovely,” Nancy laughed wickedly; “he’ll be pleased when I tell him.”

Poor Judith crimsoned.

“Oh, Nancy,” she begged, “you wouldn’t, surely you wouldn’t. I just meant that he had nice eyes.”

But Nancy would make no promises.

Promptly after an early lunch the skaters set off, and Jack appeared with a horse and a little old-fashioned cutter which he had borrowed from an uncle who scorned motors and still clung to his horse. Judith was tucked up in a fur robe in the cutter and off they went.

“It’s almost as good as skiing or flying,” laughed Judith as the light sleigh flew over the snow and the bells on the horse jingled a merry accompaniment to their talk. It was another day of magical colouring all blue and gold and dazzling white, and “Little Oaks” was reached all too soon in Judith’s opinion. To their dismay there was no friendly column of smoke announcing the fire that Mme. Berthier had promised.

“It’s a good thing the Berthiers are only a mile away,” said Jack; “whatever can have happened?”

He came out of the little whitewashed cottage with a grave face. “Jacques is away at the lumber camp and Toinette and the two younger children are down with flu Toinette seems very ill; luckily Jeanne is old enough to do the nursing, but they need a doctor, and I’m afraid I’ll have to go off at once. Nancy will be disappointed, but it can’t be helped. We’ll pin a note on the door for her as we go back it would take too long to open the house and get a good fire going and a wood fire wouldn’t keep in all afternoon anyway and I couldn’t leave you alone

“Oh, please, please,” begged Judith, “do let me stay couldn’t that small boy by the door be coaxed to stay with me for company I couldn’t bear to have Nancy’s party spoilt.”

Judith knew how to be very persuasive and Jack finally gave in. Little Pierre came with them to carry the wood, he was told.

Jack opened up the house, carried in the baskets of provisions, and lit a fire of blazing logs.

“I’ll ’phone to you when I get in, and if you should need anything, or if you feel lonely, ring up Mother in the meantime.”

“I shan’t have a minute to spare for feelings,” declared Judith, “Pierre and I have plenty to do.”

She didn’t quite realize how much was to be done when she watched Jack drive off. The living-room to be swept and dusted that would come first and no small task when one’s arms and back are bruised and aching; then to the kitchen, and judge of her dismay when on opening the baskets she found that, though there were cakes and fruit and salad stuff in plenty, of bread there was only one small loaf. Whatever could oh, here was a small bag of flour and a tin of baking powder. Judith groaned as she remembered hearing Nancy tell Sally May that Mme. Berthier was a splendid cook and had promised to make heaps of waffles and hot biscuits for them to eat with their baked beans and salad.

Twenty hungry skaters appearing in an hour and one small loaf to feed them! Judith had never made waffles, but she had made baking-powder biscuits once or twice, though only, of course, in small quantities. Her first thought was to walk to Mme. Berthier’s cottage and ask for directions. No, that wouldn’t do the precious hour would be gone. And Nancy must not be disappointed.

“Put on some more wood, Pierre, please. I want a good hot oven,” she called to her little helper, and then as he looked blank she tried first her scanty stock of French words and then showed him what to do.

While she was thinking, she was rapidly unpacking the baskets and setting the table, disregarding meanwhile the twinges of pain from her hurt shoulders. At last everything was ready but the biscuits she couldn’t remember, try as she might, the proportion of baking-powder and flour and milk. A mistake would be such a tragedy! Then just as she had decided to make three or four batches and hope that one or two might be good, she suddenly thought of the telephone.

“Well, I am a silly, petit Pierre, now we’ll be all right Yes, Mrs. Nairn, it’s Judith Jack will explain please tell me how to make biscuits!”

The explanation must have been easy to follow, for when Nancy and her party arrived a little later three pans of beautifully browned fluffy tea-biscuits were ready to put on the table. Judith had never been as proud of anything in her life as of those same biscuits, and when later the company toasted her in hot cocoa and sang, “For she’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” with Nancy and Jack looking their special thanks, Judith decided she could never be any happier than she felt right then.

Mr. Nairn was as good as his word next day and took them on a sight-seeing tour ending with a delightful luncheon at the Chateau Frontenac. Judith had never lunched in such a big hotel and felt very important and grown-up. Jack and Tim refused to be instructed on historical matters, but were on hand for the luncheon.

“I guess you two have won Dad’s hard heart and no mistake,” Jack confided to Judith while they waited for Mr. Nairn, who was speaking to an acquaintance. “I see the favors are ‘chien d’or’ bonbon dishes,” pointing to the quaint little china dishes. “He always presents a copy of ‘The Golden Dog’ to highly honored visitors.”

“Your father has been telling us about it,” said Judith, “and he promised me a copy when we get home.”

“I’m coming back to sketch here some summer,” announced Sally May; “Quebec’s simply full of places wanting to be painted.”

After the luncheon the boys took them home, and as Judith was still tired from her exertions of the last two days, they voted to spend the afternoon at home, and curled themselves up in comfortable chairs in the sitting-room prepared to discuss a box of chocolates and the universe in general.

“What’re you going to do after school, Judy?” demanded Nancy; and then without waiting for an answer “I believe Mother is going to let me train to be a nurse. I’ve just been crazy to be a nurse ever since I was about ten. Mother has laughed at me and said I would get over it, but she sees that I really mean it, and I think she is willing now. I don’t know where I’ll go. Florence Matthews says you can get the best training in New York, but Mother thinks New York is too far away, and anyway I have to take a Domestic Science course first.”

“You’ll look perfectly sweet in a uniform, Nancy,” said Sally May; “I simply adore the kerchiefs the nurses wear in some of the hospitals. It’s too bad the war is over. Wouldn’t it have been thrilling to nurse soldiers!”

“I’m going to be an artist,” Sally May continued, “with a studio in New York. I’m going to buy all sorts of lovely embroidery and pottery in the East I know a perfectly lovely shop in Shanghai and I’ll make a gorgeous room. I’m sure I could make it perfectly fascinating, full of atmosphere, you know,” she continued vaguely. “I’ll have afternoon tea every day and invite heaps of people, interesting people, who do out-of-the-ordinary things. Patricia Caldwell’s cousin had the loveliest time. Patricia says her studio is just like an old-fashioned French salon.”

“What about your pictures?” asked Judith slyly.

“Oh, of course I’ll work hard,” said Sally May happily. “I simply love to draw.”

“What are you going to be, Judy?”

“I’m not sure,” said Judith slowly, “but I think I’d like to be a teacher.”

“A teacher?” chorused the other two in surprise. “Why, Judy, what a funny idea!” said Sally May.

“I don’t see why it’s funny,” Judith objected. “I think it would be splendid to be like Miss Marlowe or head of a school like Miss Meredith.”

“Well, you’ll never get married if you are a teacher,” said Sally May with finality; “at any rate, not for ages and ages.”

“Why not?” said Judy.

This was a poser.

“W-e-l-l you’d have to learn so much, you see.”

Judith laughed. “I hadn’t thought of that, but I thought you were going to be an artist,” she added teasingly.

“But not all my life,” expostulated Sally May, and Judith and Nancy laughed to think of Sally May’s picture of a hard-working artist.

Judith considered the matter of her future seriously as she dressed for dinner.

It might be nice to be married think how lonely she and Mummy would be without Daddy but of course she couldn’t marry Daddy; and then she laughed at herself as she remembered Daddy’s story of the small girl who sobbed that she didn’t ever want to get married because, as she couldn’t have daddy, she’d have to marry a perfect stranger.

“Perhaps some one like Tim would be nice,” thought Judith, and after the fashion of most sixteen-year-olds she began to weave a shadowy romance with a Prince Charming as its central figure. Tim had walked to the Chateau with them this morning, and although he had not condescended to talk beyond the merest civilities, this silence had merely served to enhance his romantic value in Judith’s eyes. She wondered what he was thinking of. Perhaps he was living over again a battle in the clouds as a matter of fact, Tim was wondering why he hadn’t received a certain letter which he had hoped for on Christmas Day. Judith hoped he would like her new frock, and wondered how many dances he would ask her for on New Year’s night.

The Nairns were a musical family. Nancy always went to the piano and played for her father after dinner, sometimes Mrs. Nairn joined in with her violin, and to-night Tim appeared with his ’cello.

Judith loved to attend symphony concerts and the tuning-up of the orchestra never failed to give her delicious thrills, but she had never had a speaking acquaintance so to speak with a ’cello before this, and the beautiful mellow tones delighted her more than anything she had ever heard before. As she undressed that night she revised her plans for the future. She would devote herself to music and study hard so that when they were married she might be her husband’s accompanist. “On wings of music” they would soar, and when they did come back to earth it must be to a bungalow, a dear little grey-stone bungalow. She spent a happy time planning the furnishing of her music-room and fell asleep before she had decided on the respective merits of old oak and mahogany.

Next day began with “Happy New Year” and ended with the jolliest of family parties. All the members of the house-party spent a busy day, for Mrs. Nairn had plenty for the two maids to do in the kitchen. Sally May was discovered to have a talent for decorating, so she and Jack and Tim hung evergreens and holly and placed ferns and flowers where they would show to the best advantage, while Nancy and Judith whisked about with dusters and brushes.

“Music in the living-room, dancing in the drawing-room and hall, and cards upstairs in Mother’s sitting-room,” said Nancy as they set the small tables. “That’s what we always have, and then everybody dances a Sir Roger de Coverly you should see Uncle Phil and Aunt Maria dancing and afterwards we have supper.”

They had a picnic tea at six o’clock in the sitting-room as the maids were arranging the supper-table in the dining-room, and then came the fun of dressing.

Judith had kept her new silver frock as a great surprise, and now it was thrilling to burst into Nancy’s room in all her new finery. Nancy and Sally May said it was “perfectly sweet,” and even Jack, “who never notices” (according to Nancy), looked and whistled his admiration as Judith came downstairs, her eyes shining, her cheeks glowing with excitement, and her pretty frock swishing about her in a highly gratifying manner.

Guests were arriving at an unfashionably early hour, since it was largely a family party, and Judith was introduced to a bewildering number of cousins and cousins’ cousins and aunts and uncles.

But where was Tim? He had not been home for tea, and although Judith listened and watched there was no sign of him.

“Tim went out early this afternoon to pay calls and he isn’t back yet,” Sally May informed Judith. “I think Mrs. Nairn is rather worried about him.”

The younger set had been dancing for an hour or more and Jack had proved an attentive host, but Judith was still half unconsciously looking for Tim when suddenly she saw him in the doorway with an exquisitely pretty girl beside him. Perhaps it was Tim’s radiant look which he was making no effort to hide, perhaps it was his partner’s radiant looks which she was trying to hide, but however it was Judith had the quick conviction that this was a very special partner. The newcomer was slim and graceful, and Judith saw with sudden envy that her hair was like spun gold and her eyes as blue as forget-me-nots.

Tim danced with no one else, and in spite of Jack’s attentions and no lack of interesting partners, Judith began to feel a little disconsolate. However, it was hard not to be merry at such a merry party; there was happiness in the very air.

The Sir Roger was a great success, and Uncle Phil, aged seventy-two, upheld his reputation as the gayest dancer of them all.

At supper-time Nancy and Judith were helping to serve the little tables in the library when Judith saw Tim with his partner come in and go over to Mr. and Mrs. Nairn. Nancy suddenly squeezed Judith’s arm.

“Oh, Judy, Judy, they’re engaged! I’m sure they are! Look at Tim! We were pretty sure he was in love with her, and Lois is such a darling!”

Then she rushed over to put her arms around Lois, and Judith was left alone feeling bereaved of husband, home, and career at one cruel stroke.

“The nicest party I ever was at,” said Sally May enthusiastically as the three said good-night after a long discussion of the evening’s fun, “and I think you looked nicer than anybody else, Judy. I do hope you won’t get conceited about the way you look in that new frock. I know I should.”

“The nicest party I ever was at,” thought Judith before she fell asleep, “and the very nicest people. Jack is a brick he’s been awfully kind to me. I wish I was half as pretty as Lois Selkirk. What would it feel like to be engaged? I guess it would be exciting! However, then I wouldn’t be going back to York Hill and that will be exciting next term and no mistake. Oh, how glad I am that I’ve got Nancy!”