BY JANE G. AUSTIN.


"Tell you what, Roxie, I wish father and Jake had some of those hot
nut-cakes for their dinner; they didn't carry much of anything, and
these are proper nice."

Mrs. Beamish set her left hand upon her hip, leaned against the corner
of the dresser, and meditatively selected another nut-cake, dough-nut
or cruller, as you may call them, from the great brown pan piled up
with these dainties, and Roxie, who was curled up in a little heap on
the corner of the settle, knitting a blue woolen stocking, looked
brightly up and said:

"Let me go and carry them some, Ma. It's just as warm and nice as can
be out-of-doors, real springy, and I know the way to the wood lot. I'd
just love to go."

"Let's see--ten o'clock," said Mrs. Beamish, putting the last bit of
cake into her mouth, and wiping her fingers upon her apron. "It's a
matter of four miles there by the bridge, Jake says, though if you
cross the ford it takes off a mile or more. You'd better go round by
the bridge, anyway."

"Oh no, Ma; that isn't worth while, for Pa said only last night that
the ice was strong enough yet to sled over all the wood he'd been
cutting," said Roxie, earnestly, for the additional mile rather
terrified her.