"You must be cold. You wouldn't be shivering if you weren't. We'll go back and roast some more chestnuts." She walked along beside him and suddenly he turned to her and smiled and his voice was Paul's voice again, "We're going to have wonderful times this winter, Flip!" he said. "When you learn how to ski we can go skiing together. And in the spring we can go for trips on the lake and in the summer we can go swimming. I'm glad you came to the chateau, Flip." "Oh!" Flip said, "supposing I hadn't." 2 The next afternoon the sky clouded over and it began to snow and it snowed all afternoon and all night and the following afternoon skiing began. Fräulein Hauser met the beginners in the ski room, and told them the various parts of the skis and the ski sticks, and how to take care of them. Flip clutched Eunice's discarded skis and felt happy with the excited kind of anticipation that comes before Christmas. Somehow she knew she would be able to ski and maybe if she turned out to be a really wonderful skier the girls would like her better and then she would begin to like school and she would be better able to help Paul. But when they got out on the gentle slopes where Fräulein Hauser taught the beginners it wasn't at all the way she had imagined and hoped it would be. Instead of all at once being able to fly over the snow like a bird as she had dreamed, she found that no sooner was she on her feet than she was flat on her back, skis up in the air, or with her head buried in the snow, or doing a kind of wild splits. Fräulein Hauser was not unkind, but after a while she said, "You don't seem to have much aptitude for this, do you, Philippa?" Flip gritted her teeth. "I'll learn." "I hope so." Fräulein Hauser sounded dubious. Every afternoon Flip went out grimly with the beginners. She was covered with bruises and every muscle in her body ached, but she was determined that she was going to learn how to ski, that in this one thing at any rate she would not fail. When the other beginners laughed at her tumbles she tried desperately to laugh back, to pretend that she thought it was funny, too. At the end of the skiing class on Friday afternoon, Fräulein Hauser called her back to the ski room as the others left. "I don't want to hurt your feelings, Philippa, but I think you'd better drop skiing. You'll enjoy the ice-skating when the hockey field is flooded, I'm sure, and in the meantime there are walks, and gym work." "But why, please, Fräulein Hauser?" Flip gasped in dismay. "You just don't seem able to learn, and I'll have to admit I can't teach you. I'm afraid you'll hurt yourself in one of your falls and I think it would be best if you just give it up." Flip looked at the racks and racks of skis as they suddenly began blurring together. "I'd rather keep on, please, Fräulein Hauser, if it's all right."