sparkling, cloudless, for March had slipped in quietly in the night,
with a gentle breeze of wonderful softness, a quiet breeze, but one
that knew its business, and long before daylight it had licked the
hard edges of the drifts into icy blisters, and had purred its way
into all sorts of forgotten corners where the snow lay thickest.

It went past Pearl's face now with velvety smoothness--patting her
cheeks with a careless hand, like a loving friend who hurries by with
no time for anything but this swift re-assurance. But Pearl knew that
the wind and the sun and the crisp white snow, on which the sunbeams
danced and sparkled, were her friends, and were throbbing with joy
this morning, because it was her great day.

She went in at last, remembering that the children must be washed and
fed for school, and found Danny's garter for him just in time to save
him from the gulf of despair which threatened him. She made up the two
tin pails of lunch with which her young brothers would beguile the
noontide hour. She put a button on Mary's spat, in response to her
request of "Aw, say Pearl, you do this--I can't eat and sew." The
sudden change in the weather forced a change in the boys' foot-gear,
and so there had to be a frenzied hunt for rubbers and boots to
replace the frost-repelling but pervious moccasin.

One by one, as the boys were ready, fed, clothed and rubbered, they
were started on their two-mile journey over the sunny, snowy road,
Danny being the first to so emerge, for with his short, fat legs, he
could not make the distance in as short a time as the others.

"Mr. Donald wants you to come over on Friday, Pearl--I almost forgot
to tell you--he wants you to talk to us about the city, and the