The prospect of a skating rink in the garden was hailed with joy, and the anxiety of the school was great lest the frost should give way, and frustrate their very delightful plans. The amusements of the cold spell so outweighed the discomforts that nobody (except poor Mademoiselle) grumbled at nipped fingers or chilly toes. Even Agnes Maxwell, who was a martyr to chilblains, suffered heroically, and did not wish for a thaw. "It's quite the most severe winter I can remember," said Mabel, breaking the ice in her bedroom jug next morning. "I believe even my bottle of hair wash is frozen, and the glycerine cream is perfectly stiff; I shall have to melt it on the radiator before I can put any on my hands. Look at the window! It's covered with beautiful frost patterns." "All the better for skating," said Aldred, who was trying to thaw her toothbrush. "I'm glad there has been no more snow to spoil our ice. I wish Miss Drummond would let us go out at once, after breakfast, instead of doing lessons." Miss Drummond's good nature, however, did not extend to such a pitch of leniency as that, and the morning classes went on just as usual. About dinner-time, a young man arrived from Chetbourne with a large parcel of skates, and Aldred, who did not possess any of her own, was able to expend some of her pocket-money on a neat little pair. "You've made a lovely choice!" said Mabel. "Mine are an old pair of my brother's that just fit me now; they're rather shabby, but they happen to be particularly good steel, and always 'bite' very well. There's the greatest difference in skates, in that respect." "You'll have to help me," said Aldred, "for I've never even tried before, and I'm sure I shall be extremely stupid and clumsy." "It will be the lame supporting the halt, then," laughed Mabel, "for I'm certainly not a crack skater myself." By two o'clock the whole school was disporting itself on the ice. Some girls (Ursula Bramley, in especial) seemed quite at home there, and cut figures of eight with aggravating ease while their less fortunate comrades strove to balance themselves with outstretched arms, or sat down suddenly on the slippery surface. "I'd no idea one could feel so absolutely weak in the knees!" declared Aldred, subsiding on to the snowy bank after a first struggle round the rink. "I'm like a baby learning to walk. I wonder if I shall ever manage to strike out properly? Look at Ursula--she's doing the 'Dutch roll'. I'm green with envy!" "There's nothing like practice," said Mabel, getting up and making a gallant effort to accomplish the "outside edge", but speedily coming to grief over it. "Give me a winter in Norway, and I'd undertake to waltz on the ice; but what can one expect on the first day?" CHAPTER XI Venus in the Snow