The ice was even as fine as it had been so redundantly represented to Sylvia. Out of doors, leaning her supple, exquisitely poised body to the wind as she veered like a bird on her flying skates, Sylvia's spirits rebounded with an instant reaction into enjoyment. She adored skating, and she had in it, as in all active exercise, the half-wild pleasure of one whose childhood is but a short time behind her. Furthermore, her costume prepared for this event (Mrs. Draper had told her of the little lake on the Fiske estate) was one of her successes. It had been a pale cream broadcloth of the finest texture, one of Aunt Victoria's reception gowns, which had evidently been spoiled by having coffee spilled down the front breadth. Sylvia had had the bold notion of dyeing it scarlet and making it over with bands of black plush (the best bits from an outworn coat of her mother's). On her gleaming red-brown hair she had perched a little red cap with a small black wing on either side (one of Lawrence's pet chickens furnished this), and she carried the muff which belonged with her best set of furs. Thus equipped, she looked like some impish, slender young Brunhilde, with her two upspringing wings. The young men gazed at her with the most unconcealed delight. As she skated very well, better than any of the other girls, she felt, sweeping about the pond in long, swift curves, that she was repaid for her ignorance of billiards. Jerry and the young man he called Stub were openly in competition for her attention, highly jocose on Stub's part and not at all so on Jerry's, whose brow did not clear at the constant crackling of the other's witticisms. On the shore burned a big fire, tended by a man-servant in livery, who was occupied in setting out on a long table a variety of sandwiches and cups of steaming bouillon. Sylvia had never encountered before a real man-servant in livery. She looked at him with the curiosity she might have shown at seeing a mediaeval knight in full armor. Jerry brought her a cup of the bouillon, which was deliciously hot and strong. Experienced as she was in the prudent provisioning of the Marshall kitchen she was staggered to think how many chickens had gone into filling with that clear liquor the big silver tureen which steamed over the glittering alcohol lamp. The table was set, for that casual outdoor picnic lunch, as she could hardly have imagined a royal board. "What beautiful things your people have!" she exclaimed to Jerry, looking at a pile of small silver forks with delicately carved ivory handles. "The rugs in the house are superb."