“You bet!” murmured Billy, under his breath.  He too had seen the distant figure of Sir Eustace on the mountain-side.

“It depends,” said Rose, non-committally.

“Captain Brent and Sir Eustace have been on skis all the morning,” said her mother.  “We must see what they say about it.”

Billy spun a coin into the air behind her back.  “Heads Sir Eustace and tails Captain Brent,” he muttered to the man who had commented upon Isabel’s beauty.  “Heads it is!”

Lady Grace turned round with a touch of sharpness at the sound of his companion’s laugh.  “Billy!  Did I not tell you to go and wash your hands?”

Billy’s green eyes smiled impudent acknowledgment.  “You did, Lady Grace.  And I’m going.  Good-bye!”

He pocketed the coin, winked at his friend, and departed whistling.

“A very unmannerly little boy!” observed Lady Grace, with severity.  “Come, my dear Rose!  We must go in.”

“I don’t like either the one or the other,” said Rose, with a very unusual touch of petulance.  “They are always in the way.”

“I fully agree with you,” said Lady Grace acidly.  “But it is for the first and last time in their lives.  I have already told the Colonel so.  He will never ask them to accompany us again.”

“Thank goodness for that!” said Rose, with restored amiability.  “Of course I am sorry for poor little Dinah; but there is a limit.”

“Which is very nearly reached,” said Lady Grace.

CHAPTER XV

THE MOUNTAIN CREST

That sleigh-drive was to Dinah the acme of delight, and for ever after the jingle of horse-bells was to recall it to her mind.  The sight of the gay red trappings, the trot of the muffled hoofs, the easy motion of the sleigh slipping over the white road, and above all, Isabel, clad in purple and seated beside her, a figure of royal distinction, made a picture in her mind that she was never to forget.  She rode in a magic chariot through wonderland.

She longed to delay the precious moments as they flew, like a child chasing butterflies in the sunshine; but they only seemed to fly the faster.  She chattered almost incessantly for the first few miles, and occasionally Isabel smiled and answered her; but for the most part it was Scott, seated opposite, who responded to her raptures,—­Scott, unfailingly attentive and courteous, but ever watchful of his sister’s face.

She gazed straight ahead when she was not looking at anything to which Dinah called her attention.  Her eyes had the intense look of one who watches perpetually for something just out of sight.

Quiet but alert, he marked her attitude, marked also the emaciation which was so painfully apparent in the strong sunshine and formed so piteous a contrast to the vivid youth of the girl beside her.  Presently Dinah came out of her rhapsodies and observed his vigilance.  She watched him covertly for a time while she still chatted on.  And she noted that there were very weary lines about his eyes, lines of anxiety, lines of sleeplessness, that filled her warm heart with quick sympathy and a longing to help.