rose to a dizzy height and from whose
lower one a second timbered "hill" rose and descended.

If the toboggan was in good working order, the momentum gained in the
descent of the first would carry the toboggans up and over the second;
and nothing could have been in finer condition than these on that next
Saturday morning when the sport was to begin. The depression between
the two slides was over a small lake, or pond, now solidly frozen and
covered with snow; except in spots where the ice had been cut for
filling the Oak Knowe ice-houses. Into one of these holes Michael and
his force had plunged a long hose pipe, and a pump had been contrived
to throw water upward over the slide.

On the night before men had been stationed on the slide, at intervals,
to distribute this water over the whole incline, the intense cold
causing it to freeze the instant it fell; and so well they understood
their business they had soon rendered it a perfectly smooth slide of
ice from top to bottom. A little hand-railed stairway, for the ascent
of the tobogganers, was built into the timbers of the toboggan, or
incline, itself; and it was by this that they climbed back to the top
after each descent, dragging their toboggans behind them. At the
further side of the lake, close to its bank, great blazing fires were
built, where the merry makers could warm themselves, or rest on the
benches placed around.

Large as some of the toboggans were they were also light and easily
carried, some capable of holding a half-dozen girls--"packed close."
Yet some sleds could seat but two, and these were the handsomest of
all. They belonged to the girls who had grown proficient in the sport
and able to take care of themselves; while some man of the household
always acted as guide on the larger sleds and for the younger pupils.

When Dorothy came out of the great building, that Saturday holiday,
she thought the whole scene was truly fairyland. The evergreens were
loaded to the ground with their burden of snow, the wide lawns were
dazzlingly bright, and the sun shone brilliantly.

"Who're you going to slide with, Dolly? On Michael's sled? I guess the
Lady Principal will say so, because you're so new to it. Will you be
afraid?"

"Why should I be afraid? I used to slide down the mountain side when I
lived at Skyrie. What makes you laugh, Winifred? This won't be very
different, will it?"

"Wait till you try it! It's perfectly glorious but it isn't just the
sam