“Oh, I know,” said Arabella, “but he’s real nice looking, and Dorothy says her father thinks he’s smart.  I shouldn’t think he could be brother to that little pig or that Mandy girl.”

“Well, he is, and one thing Dorothy said one day I couldn’t understand.  She said that one reason why her father was so kind to Jimmy is because Jimmy helped to get Nancy Ferris home one time when she was stolen from them.  Did you ever hear ’bout that?  I don’t see how just a boy could do that, do you?”

No, Arabella did not see, nor had she heard the story, but she had seen Jimmy, and she wondered that he belonged to such a family as that which produced Mandy and Chub.

“Ye’re ‘most home,” declared the driver, “an’ soon’s I’ve landed ye I’ll hev ter scoot.”

“But you’ll have to take Arabella home; she lives ’way over the other side of the town,” insisted Patricia.

“Oh, no, no, he won’t!” said Arabella.  “I’d rather walk all the way than have Aunt Matilda know that I’ve been sleighing.”

“Why, how funny!” and Patricia stared in surprise.

“It’s funnier now than it would be when Aunt Matilda found it out.”

“Why?” Patricia asked.

“Because,” said Arabella, “whenever I’ve been out, and she thinks I’ve taken cold, she boils some old herb tea, and makes me drink it hot, and I have to be bundled in blankets, and she makes such a fuss that I wish I hadn’t gone anywhere at all.”  “I guess you’d better not tell her,” Patricia advised, to which Arabella replied: 

“I just don’t intend to.”

And while Dorothy and Nancy were standing before a blazing fire in the sitting-room at the stone house, recounting the beauties of the sky, the branches fringed with glittering icicles, the squirrels that raced across the hard crust of snow, and indeed, every lovely bit of road or forest which they had seen, Arabella, shivering as she hurried along, saw the bright lights, and rushed past the great gate, across the avenue and in at her own driveway.  She hoped that every one would be talking when she entered.  She intended to join in the conversation, and she thought if she could manage to talk very, very fast, Aunt Matilda might not ask where she had been.  But she did.  Arabella had removed her hat and cloak, and trying very hard to stop shivering, she pushed aside the portiere, and stood in the glow of the shaded lamp.

“Warmer weather to-morrow, the paper says, and I guess we shall all be glad to have it,” Aunt Matilda was saying.

“It w-would be f-fine to h-h-have it w-w-warmer,” said Arabella, her teeth chattering so that she thought every one must hear them rattle.

Over her paper Aunt Matilda’s bright eyes peered at the little girl who shivered in spite of her effort to stand very still.

“Where have you been, Arabella?  You’re chilled through.  I say, where have you been?”

“I’ve just taken quite a long walk,” Arabella replied.  “If you’ve taken a long walk as late as this in the afternoon, you’ve come some distance.  Have you been spending this whole afternoon at that Lavine girl’s house?”