With a sudden rush, the bobsled started.  Dot clutched Meg frantically, and even Twaddles was startled.  They had no idea it would seem so “different.”  The wind almost took their breath away, but they still had enough to scream with.  You’ve noticed, haven’t you, how every one on a bobsled just naturally screams when it is flying down a steep hill?  It is partly the fun and partly the excitement, we suspect.

Laughing and shouting, they whizzed on, till, just as Dave was ready to shout to Fred Graves, the last boy, to put out his foot and Meg had a confused glimpse of the big tree they were passing where Palmer and Hester waited for them, something happened.  The bobsled upset!

No one was hurt, though for a moment it was quite impossible to sort out the arms and legs and wildly waving feet and decide to whom they belonged.  The boys were up first, and soon had the girls on their feet, some of them speechless from laughter.  The four little Blossoms came up smiling, and though Dot had a scratch on her finger from a nail in some one’s shoe, it was trifling and did not bother her.

“All right?  Everybody accounted for?” asked Dave, like the good general he was.  “All right then.  Now I say we’d better streak it for home.  I’ve got some good stiff Latin to study to-night.”

“What’s the matter, Meg?” asked Bobby suddenly.

Meg’s eyes were frightened, and she was feeling around the neck of her dress.  She had unbuttoned her coat and opened her gray muffler.

“My gold locket!” she gasped.  “I’ve lost it!”

She began to cry.

“Lost something?” asked one of the older girls kindly.  “What was it?  Don’t cry, Meg, we’ll help you find it.”

“It was her Aunt Dorothy locket,” explained Dot, for Meg was already on her knees brushing the snow away.  “Mother said she should take it off, and now it’s gone.”

CHAPTER V

MEG IN TROUBLE

“I did mean to take it off,” protested Meg, frantically digging in the snow about the bobsled.  “I went upstairs to put it in the box, and then Norah called me about the cakes.  Oh, dear, what will Mother say?”

The news soon spread among the others that little Meg Blossom had lost her gold locket, and all the boys and girls turned to with a will to help her search for it.  They looked up the road a way, because some thought the locket might have flown off before the sled upset; they hunted over every inch of the ground where they had been spilled out, for Dave was sure it must be there.  But though they looked in possible and impossible places, no sign of the dainty gold locket with the turquoise forget-me-nots and the diamond dewdrops in their centers could the children find.

“Half-past five,” announced Dave presently.  “Awfully sorry, Meg, but your locket must be lost in the snow.  It’s too dark and too late to hunt any more now.  You run along home and don’t worry; maybe you’ll get another one next Christmas.”