"Then I bought this place, and we used to spend part of the year here
and part of it at Snow Lodge. It was a fine place winter or summer,
Snow Lodge was."

Mr. Carford became silent and looked again into the glowing logs on
the hearth.

"Don't you go to Snow Lodge any more?" asked Nan in a low voice.

"No," replied the old man. "Never any more. Not--not since Henry went
away," and he seemed to be in pain. "I have never gone there since
Henry went away," he added, "though the place is well kept up, and it
is ready to live in this minute."

"Did your nephew Henry run away, as you did?" asked Bert.

"No--not exactly," was the reply. "I don't like to talk about that
part of it. I like to think of Snow Lodge on the shore of the lake as
a place where I lived when I was a boy.

"Oh, it's just fine there!" went on Mr. Carford. "In summer the grass
is so green, and you can sit on the porch and look down at the lake.
In the winter, when the lake is frozen over, there is skating and ice
boating on it, and you can fish through the ice. And such hills as
there are to coast down! and such valleys filled with snow! Sometimes
it seems as if the whole house would be covered with the white flakes.

"But you can always keep warm in Snow Lodge, for there are big
fireplaces, as well as the furnace, and there is plenty of wood. Many