"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 to see what is permitted to your English _Mees_." "I'm glad we are English," whispered Aldred to Mabel. "French girls must have a stupid time, if they're never allowed to toboggan, or to go in the snow. If I were sent to a French school I'd run away, and come back to Birkwood!" "There's no place like the Grange," agreed Mabel, brushing the snow vigorously from her dress. "If there's any jolly thing that it's possible to do Miss Drummond thinks of it." Miss Drummond certainly justified the character that Mabel gave her, for when the girls, very warm and rosy after their exertions, returned to the school at four o'clock, they found a surprise waiting for them. Brown, the gardener, with the aid of two or three labourers who had been called in to help him, had shovelled away the whole of the snow on the asphalt tennis court, and piled it as a wall all round. He had then brought the hose, and was now busy flooding the court to a depth of three or four inches. "It ought to freeze hard to-night," said Miss Drummond, "and by to-morrow morning there should be a splendid surface. Those girls who have brought skates to school will be in luck, and I shall be able to arrange for those who have not. I have written to Wilson's, the ironmonger at Chetbourne, to send us out a parcel of several dozen to choose from."