ook out of the side window and see. What fun! Such a
big girl to go sliding!"

Anne was a big girl to go; but Rast was not to be withstood. She would
not get on the sled at the door, as he wished, but followed him out
through the sally-port, and round to the top of the long steep fort
hill, whose snowy slippery road-track was hardly used at all during the
winter, save by coasters, and those few in number, for the village boys,
French and half-breeds, did not view the snow as an amusement, or
toiling up hill as a recreation. The two little boys at the fort, and
what Scotch and New England blood there was in the town, held a monopoly
of the coasting.

"There they go!" cried Bert, from his perch on the deep window-seat
overlooking the frozen Straits and the village below. "Mamma, you must
let me take you down now; you are not so big as Miss Douglas."

Mrs. Bryden, a slender little woman, laughed. "Fancy the colonel's
horror," she said, "if he should see me sliding down that hill! And yet
it looks as if it might be rather stirring," she added, watching the
flying sled and its load. The sled, of island manufacture, was large
and sledge-like; it carried two comfortably. Anne held on by Rast's
shoulders, sitting behind him, while he guided the flying craft. Down
they glided, darted, faster and faster, losing all sense of everything
after a while save speed. Reaching the village street at last, they flew
across it, and out on the icy pier beyond, where Rast by a skillful
manoeuvre stopped the sled on the very verge. The fort ladies were all at
the windows now, watching.

"How dangerous!" said Mrs. Bryden, forgetting her admiration of a moment
before with a mother's irrelevant rapidity. "Albert, let me never see or
hear of your sliding on that pier; another inch, and they would have
gone over, down on the broken ice below!"

"I couldn't do it, mamma, even if I tried," replied Master Albert,
regretfully; "I always tumble off the sled at the street, or else run
into one of the warehouses. Only Rast Pronando can steer across
slanting, and out on that pier."

"I am very glad to hear it," replied Mrs. Bryden; "but your father must
also give you his positive commands on the subject. I had no idea that
the pier was ever attempted."

"And it is not, mamma, except by Rast," said the boy. "Can't I try it
when I am as old as he is?"

"Hear the child!" said Mrs. Cromer, going back to her seat by the fire;
"one would suppose he exp