"Nevaire!" shuddered poor Mademoiselle, who considered a walk in the
snow quite a sufficient adventure. "I should have fear to place myself
on a thing so insecure, and to let myself glide thus! Oh, no, it would
be an act of folly! We have no snows in Provence, and I have been
brought up to love other pleasures."

"You shall have the next turn if you like, Mademoiselle," said Esther
Vaudrey, one of the pioneers. "It's really not difficult at all, if
you know how to tuck up your feet."

"It makes one warm, at any rate," said Freda. "Who's going next? We'd
better take it in Forms."

The sport proved extremely popular, and for the next hour relays of
girls were constantly going down the slope; the track was soon as smooth
as a slide, and really made a very good course, quite enough to satisfy
everyone except Ursula.

"It's nothing to Les Avants! You should have seen that!" she kept
assuring the others.

"Then I wish you would go back to Les Avants!" exclaimed Phoebe.
"What's the good of belittling this all the time, and trying to make out
it's so tame? I call it bad taste! If you can't enjoy it, we can, at any
rate."

"I'd enjoy it if I had my own little sled, instead of a tea-tray."

"Nobody wants you to go on a tea-tray," said Agnes. "You can miss your
turn if you like--I'll take it instead."

That, however, Ursula was not ready to allow. She appreciated the
tobogganing as much as anyone, though she liked the triumph of referring
to her Swiss achievements.

The fun waxed fast and furious. The girls were keen on racing, and would
start six together from the top, at a given signal; then there would be
a lightning descent down the slippery slide, generally ending in a roll
in the snow at the bottom, from which they would spring up, powdered
from head to foot, but laughing and quite unhurt.

Miss Drummond and most of the teachers took an occasional turn, but
Mademoiselle remained firm in her refusal to venture into what she
considered such imminent danger to life and limb.

"It is the sport of men!" she declared. "In my country, such things are
not for _les jeunes filles_. They do not go out to slide in the snow."

"But don't you think our girls look much brighter and healthier, with
this brisk exercise, than if we had kept them cooped up in the
schoolrooms all this beautiful afternoon?" asked Miss Drummond.

"Perhaps--yes, that I will allow. But custom is strong upon us, and to
me, I find it still strange t