Flappers and Philosophers

e, but now they were traversed again with a powdery wraith of loose snow that travelled in w

snowflakes-while over it all, chilling away the comfort from the brown-and-green glow of lighted windows and muffling the steady

time by tombing heaps of sleet. Oh, if there should be snow on her grave! To be beneath great piles of it all winter long, where even h

indows, the crust forming on the soft drifts of snow, finally the slow cheerless melting and the harsh spring of which Roger Patton had told her. Her spring-

nd Harry reached over a furry arm and drew down her complicated flannel cap. Then the small flakes came in ski

d, Harry," sh

Oh, no, he isn'

the wintry sky stood the ice palace. It was three stories in the air, with battlements and embrasures and narrow icicled windows, and the in

y golly, it's beautiful, isn't it! They

sed her. Ice was a ghost, and this mansion of it was surely peopled by t

dear," s

l-drew up beside them with a mighty jingle of bells. There were quite a crowd already, bundled in fur or sheepskin, shouting and call

ing to a muffled figure beside him as they trudged to

"walls twenty to forty inches thick"-"and the ice cav

of the great crystal walls Sally Carrol found hersel

iracle of r

ure-dome with

ession lifted. Harry was right-it was beautiful; and her gaze travelled the smooth surface of the walls, the b

e go-oh, boy!

oustics, and then the lights suddenly went out; silence seemed to flow down the icy sides and sweep over them. S

tribe traversing an ancient wild; it swelled-they were coming nearer; then a row of torches appeared, and another and another, and keeping time with their moccasined

ed toboggan caps and flaming crimson mackinaws, and as they entered they took up the ref

b," whispered Harry eagerly. "Those a

ed the air like a crash of thunder, and sent the torches wavering. It was magnificent, it was tremendous! To Sally Carol it was the North offering sacrifice on some mighty altar to the gray pagan God of Snow. As the shout died the band struck up again and there came more singing, and then long reverberating cheers by each club. She sat very quiet lis

to see the labyrinths down-stairs

chute was a long empty room of ice, with the ceiling so low that they had to stoop-and their hands were parted. Before she realized what he intended

!" she

!" he cr

idently decided to go home, were already outside somewhere in th

" she s

int muffled answer far to the left, and with a touch of panic fl

ar

nd then turned like lightning and sped back the w

age with darkness at the end. She called again, but the walls gave back a flat, lifeless echo with no reverberations. Retracing her steps she turned anothe

n the bottom of her overshoes; she had to run her gloves alo

ar

he made bounced mockingly do

but she scarcely noticed it as some deep terror far greater than any fear of being lost settled upon her. She was alone with this presence that came out of the North, the dreary loneliness that rose from ice

h and lie embedded in the ice like corpses she had read of, kept perfectly preserved until the melting of a glacier. Harry probably thought she had left wit

felt things creeping, damp souls that h

y-send somebody!"

be frozen, heart, body, and soul. This her-this Sally Carrol! Why, she was a happy thing. She w

"You'll never cry any more. Your tears wo

full length

!" she f

she felt her eyes dosing. Then some one seemed to sit down near he

ry Lee, and she was just as Sally Carrol had known she would be, with a young, white brow, and

gery

s ought to be repainted sure enough, only that would spo

ultimately resolving themselves into a multitude of blurred rays converging toward

a face took flesh below the torch, heavy arms raised her and she felt something on her cheek-it

rrol! Sal

es she didn't know. "Child, child! We've been

e torches, the great shout of the marching clubs. S

scream that sent a chill to Harry's heart as he came racing down the next passage-"to-