He did his best, the two girls seconding his efforts so genially that he found himself, after driving five miles, psychologically just where he was physically—­between them, as near to one in his thoughts and preferences as to the other.

“Let us take the river road home,” suggested Lottie.

“As long as you agree,” he answered, “you both are sovereign potentates.  If you should express conflicting wishes, I should have to stop here in the road till one abdicated in favor of the other, or we all froze.”

“But you, sitting so snugly between us, would not freeze,” said Lottie.  “If we were obstinate we should have to assume our pleasantest expressions, and then you could eventually take us home as bits of sculpture.  In fact, I’m getting cold already.”

“Are you also, Miss Carrie?”

“Oh, I’ll thaw out before summer.  Don’t mind me.”

“Well, then, mind me,” resumed Lottie.  “See how white and smooth the river looks.  Why can’t we drive home on the ice?  It will save miles—­I mean it looks so inviting.”

“Oh, dear!” cried Carrie, “I feel like protesting now.  The longest way round may be both the shortest and safest way home.”

“You ladies shall decide.  This morning I drove over the route we would take to-night, and I should not fear to take a ton of coal over it.”

“A comparison suggesting warmth and a grate-fire.  I vote for the river,” said Lottie, promptly.

“Oh, well, Mr. Marstern, if you’ve been over the ice so recently—­ I only wish to feel reasonably safe.”

“I declare!” thought Marstern, “Lottie is the braver and more brilliant girl; and the fact that she is not inclined to forego the comfort of the home-fire for the pleasure of my company, reveals the difficulty of, and therefore incentive to, the suit I may decide to enter upon before New Year’s.”

Meanwhile, his heart on Carrie’s side began to grow warm and alert, as if recognizing an affinity to some object not far off.  Granting that she had not been so brilliant as Lottie, she had been eminently companionable in a more quiet way.  If there had not been such bursts of enthusiasm at the beginning of the drive, her enjoyment appeared to have more staying powers.  He liked her none the less that her eyes were often turned toward the stars or the dark silhouettes of the leafless trees against the snow.  She did not keep saying, “Ah, how lovely!  What a fine bit that is!” but he had only to follow her eyes to see something worth looking at.

“A proof that Miss Carrie also is not so preoccupied with the pleasure of my company that she has no thoughts for other things,” cogitated Marstern.  “It’s rather in her favor that she prefers Nature to a grate fire.  They’re about even yet.”

Meanwhile the horse was speeding along on the white, hard expanse of the river, skirting the west shore.  They now had only about a mile to drive before striking land again; and the scene was so beautiful with the great dim outlines of the mountains before them that both the girls suggested that they should go leisurely for a time.