iron grip. The girls of Lakeview Hall were tasting all the joys of
winter sports.

The cove at the boathouse (this was the building that some of the
Lakeview Hall girls had once believed haunted) was now a smooth,
well-scraped skating pond. Between the foot of the hill, on the brow of
which the professor stood, and the Isle of Hope, the strait was likewise
solidly frozen. The bobsled course was down the hill and across the icy
track to the shore of the island.

Again the professor of mathematics--and architectural drawing--put the
key-bugle to his lips and sent the blast echoing over the white waste:

Ta-ra! ta-ra! ta-ra-ra-ra! ta-_rat!_

The road from Lakeview Hall was winding, and only a short stretch of it
could be seen from the brow of Pendragon Hill. But the roof and chimneys
of the great castle-like Hall were visible above the tree-tops.

Now voices were audible--laughing, sweet, clear, girls' voices, ringing
like a chime of silver bells, as the owners came along the well-beaten
path, and suddenly appeared around an arbor-vitae clump.

"Here they are!" announced the professor, whose red and white
toboggan-cap looked very jaunty, indeed. He told of the girls' arrival to
a boy who was toiling up the edge of the packed and icy slide. Walter
Mason had been to the bottom of the hill to make sure that no obstacle
had fallen upon the track since the previous day.

"Walter! Hello, Walter!" was the chorused shout of the leading group of