tened, Anne," said David, who sat behind her on the sled.

He pinioned her arms with his own and with a wild whoop the four young
people skimmed down the hill.

There was no time to be frightened, no time even to think, as they shot
through the fine bracing air like a ball from a cannon. Before they knew
it, they were landed at the bottom.

"O Hippy," cried Grace, her cheeks glowing like winter berries, "I feel
as if I were riding the comet. But look out for the others," for the
remaining sleds followed in quick succession and the air resounded with
the whoops of the boys and girls as they shot past. "Is there any sport
in the world that can touch it?" she demanded of the world in general.

Three or four more such rides, and Anne felt an exhilaration she had
never before known. She was climbing the hill for a final trip before
the party returned to Nora's for hot chocolate and sandwiches, when she
heard some one cry out just behind her. She had lingered a little to
watch the sleds pass, and had failed to notice a small sled with a
single occupant come over the brow of the hill well out of the beaten
path and make straight for her. It was Miriam Nesbit, riding flat on her
stomach and going like the wind.

"Jump to the left, Anne," cried Grace's voice, "or you'll be hurt!"

Anne looked up and saw the sled. It all happened in a flash, and how
David managed to get there first she never knew; but the next instant
the two were rolling over and over in the snow with Miriam on top of
them and a broken sled skidding on its back down the hillside.

"It was Miss Pierson's fault," exclaimed Miriam as she pulled herself
out of the snow, and the others came running to the scene of the
accident. "Why didn't she get out of the way? Inexperienced people ought
not to come to bobbing parties. They always get hurt."

David was binding up a cut in his wrist, which was sprinkling the snow
with blood. He was too angry to trust himself to answer his sister
before the others just then. They had pulled Anne out of a snowdrift and
she was leaning limply against Jessica, trying to collect her senses. It
seemed to her that she had been walking well out of the sled track, out
of everybody's way; but it didn't make any difference since nobody was
killed.

"All I can say now, Miriam," said Grace, "is that you are entirely
mistaken. If you hadn't hit Anne you'd have knocked me over. I was
walking just ahead of her and nobody can say I am inexp