rushed to the rescue.

"Put your arms round my neck, Miss Tremaine," cried he, peremptorily.

The poor girl, half crying with shame and cold, did so, and Du Meresq,
grasping her firmly round the waist, endeavoured to drag her forth.

"It's even betting she pulls him in," cried Jack, in a most unfeeling
ecstasy, for Miss Tremaine was no pocket Venus--rather answered the
Irishman's description of "an armful of joy."

"Oh, dear!" said poor Lilla, trembling with cold, as she found herself on
_terra firma_, "I never can go on; the snow has made me quite wet
through."

"Of course you can't," said Bertie, decidedly; "you'd catch your death of
cold. Delamere, you drive on with the other Miss Tremaine," for they had
both been in his sleigh, "and I'll take Miss Lilla home in my cutter,
where she can get dry clothes. You must all pass their house on your way
back, when we can fall in again; so that's all settled. Oh, Meredith, I
forgot you. Hitch on to some other sleigh, there's a good fellow. I am on
ambulance duty; somebody tell Colonel Rolleston--presently."

Then Bertie, who had his own reasons for hurrying, placed Miss Tremaine,
still shivering from her snow bath, in the cutter, and drove rapidly off.

"Well, I am d----d," muttered Captain Delamere to Vavasour; "she has
never seen the fellow before!"

"Hush, pray," said Jack, affectedly; "he _is_ an officious young man. But