ound air of conviction, shaking off the snow
like a Newfoundland dog. "I wonder if I could have steered as well!"

"If you are going to try, you may take some young woman who is tired of
her life," said Lilla.

"I'll take myself down, anyhow," said Du Meresq, rather nettled; and,
having dragged her toboggin up the hill, ran off to get another; but, in
passing Cecil, found a moment to say--

"Don't let that young lunatic delude you down the jump. It is unfit for
any girl but such a glutton as Lilla."

"I haven't the slightest wish to try," said she, laughing. "Lilla's a
witch. Just look at her now."

Miss Tremaine, standing poised on her toboggin, was in the act of gliding
down the hill. A light pole held in one hand served as a rudder, the
other retained the cord reins.

"It is like a fairy in a pantomime let down from above," ejaculated Du
Meresq. "That is uncommonly tall toboggining!"

A slight commotion was now apparent in the valley below. A brook ran
through it, frozen except is one place, where was a large hole. Mr.
Tremaine and Captain Delamere, slithering down together, ran into a
runaway toboggin that had upset its occupant. This knocked them out of
their course, and upset them into the rotten ice of the brook.

Mr. Tremaine was precipitated head foremost into the hole, with his heels
in the air, and Lilla at the same moment coming to a halt in her
acrobatic descent, beheld the apparition of a pair of legs, feet upwards,
and a coarse pair of knickerbocker stockings dragged over the boots.

"Who has muffed in now? Gracious goodness, _I_ knit those stockings; it
is the Governor! Pull him out--quick, quick, Captain Delamere; he'll have
a fit!"

That individual, who had just scrambled out, was standing rather dazed,
ruefully stanching the cuts on his face. Between them they soon dragged
out Mr. Tremaine, half suffocated, and puffing and panting like a
demented steam-engine, but by the time he had recovered his breath not
much the worse.

The toboggining was getting fast and furious, and several casualties
occurred. The toiler up the hill, too, had need of all his alertness to
dodge the numerous erratic cars tearing down in every direction.

An adventurous group were tying a dozen or more toboggins together, which
they called an omnibus; and Jack Vavasour, in the character of conductor,
was holding up his hand, and cadging for passengers.

"Any more for the Brook or Gore Vale? Room for two still in th