It had been part of Little Bel’s good luck that she had succeeded in obtaining board in the only family in the village which had the distinction of owning a piano; and by paying a small sum extra, she had obtained the use of this piano for an hour each day,—­the best investment of Little Bel’s life, as the sequel showed.

It was a bitter winter on Prince Edward Island.  By New Year’s time the roads were many of them wellnigh impassable with snow.  Fierce winds swept to and fro, obliterating tracks by noon which had been clear in the morning; and nobody went abroad if he could help it.  New Year’s Day opened fiercest of all, with scurries of snow, lowering sky, and a wind that threatened to be a gale before night.  But, for all that, the tying-posts behind the Wissan Bridge school-house were crowded full of steaming horses under buffalo-robes, which must stamp and paw and shiver, and endure the day as best they might, while the New Year’s examination went on.  Everybody had come.  The fame of the singing of the Wissan Bridge school had spread far and near, and it had been whispered about that there was to be a “piece” sung which was finer than anything ever sung in the Charlottetown churches.

The school-house was decorated with evergreens,—­pine and spruce.  The New Year’s Day having fallen on a Monday, Little Bel had had a clear working-day on the Saturday previous; and her faithful henchmen, Archie and Sandy, had been busy every evening for a week drawing the boughs on their sleds and piling them up in the yard.  The teacher’s desk had been removed, and in its place stood the shining red mahogany piano,—­a new and wonderful sight to many eyes there.

All was ready, the room crowded full, and the Board of Trustees not yet arrived.  There sat their three big arm-chairs on the raised platform, empty,—­a depressing and perplexing sight to Little Bel, who, in her short blue merino gown, with a knot of pink ribbon at her throat, and a roll of white paper (her schedule of exercises) in her hand, stood on the left hand of the piano, her eyes fixed expectantly on the doors.  The minutes lengthened out into quarter of an hour, half an hour.  Anxiously Bel consulted with her father what should be done.

“The roads are something fearfu’, child,” he replied; “we must make big allowance for that.  They’re sure to be comin’, at least some one o’ them.  It was never known that they failed on the New Year’s examination, an’ it would seem a sore disrespect to begin without them here.”

Before he had finished speaking there was heard a merry jingling of bells outside, dozens and dozens it seemed, and hilarious voices and laughter, and the snorting of overdriven horses, and the stamping of feet, and more voices and more laughter.  Everybody looked in his neighbor’s face.  What sounds were these?  Who ever heard a sober School Board arrive in such fashion as this?  But it was the School Board,—­nothing less:  a good