Next morning, it was winter, everyone was going to skate. Now I could not skate. At school, when there was a skating holiday, I always passed it beside the fire, which I had all to myself, roasting apples, and reading _Ivanhoe_. These were among my happiest hours. However, I did not tell CECILIA that I could not skate. I pretended (it seemed safe) to be desperately fond of hunting, and to despise skating. Besides I had work, literary work, I told CECILIA, an article on Miss AUSTEN. This pleased her, but nobody accepted the article. In fact, I was bent on secretly learning to skate. I sent to town for a pair of "Acmes," for I knew I never could manage all the straps and buckles of the ordinary modern skate. I knew of a pond where nobody came, and thither, under cover of night, I smuggled a bed-room chair. They say that pushing a chair in front of you is a good way to learn. My terror was extreme; it would be awkward to be caught, at a friend's house, stealing a bed-room chair. That I ventured this risk shows how fond of CECILIA I was. I reached the pond safely, and hid the chair in a dry ditch. Next day, when presumed to be engaged on literary labours, I sneaked back, sat down on my chair, and tried to put on the skates. It always seemed so easy when one saw an expert do it, like Mercury donning his winged shoon, and sailing over the ice. But my hands grew blue as I struggled with the key and the nuts, till I became certain that my boots were in fault. There was no help for it, I hid my chair in its ditch, and returned, to take the village cobbler into my confidence. He, good man, rose to the situation, and pointed out what I had surmised to be the case, viz., that the heels of my boots were too long to allow the chisel-edged flange to be adjusted by the lever, and admit at the same time of the other end of the heel being gripped by the cramps,--but he promised to whittle away part of the heel, and send the skates home without delay: and he was as good as his word.