Nichola had already swept the steps with hot water and salt and ashes and sawdust combined; Nichola is so thorough that I am astonished she has not corrupted me with the quality. Yet no sooner was I beyond the pale of her friendly care than I overestimated thoroughness, like the weak character that I am, and wished that the whole street had practiced it. I took three steps on that icy surface and stood still, desperately. “Pelleas,” I said, weakly, “I feel--I feel like a little nut on top of a big, frosted, indigestible cake.” I laughed a bit hysterically and Pelleas slipped my arm more firmly in his and we crept forward like the hands of a clock, Pelleas a little the faster, as became the tall minute hand. We turned the corner safely and had one interminable block to traverse before we reached the haven of the car. I looked down that long expanse of slippery gray, unbroken save where a divine janitor or two had interposed, and my courage failed me. And Pelleas rashly ventured on advice. “You walk too stiffly, Etarre,” he explained. “Relax, relax! Step along slowly but easily, as I do. Then, if you fall, you fall like a child--no jar, no shock, no broken bones. Now relax--” And Pelleas did so. Before I could shape my answer Pelleas had relaxed. He lay in a limp little heap on the ice beside me, and I shall never forget my moment of despair. I do not know where she came from, but while I stood there hopelessly reiterating, “Pelleas--why, Pelleas!” on the verge of tears, she stepped from some door of the air to my assistance. She wore a little crimson hat and a crimson collar, but her poor coat, I afterward noted, was sadly worn. At the moment of her coming it was her clear, pale face that fixed itself in my grateful memory. She darted forward, stepped down from the curb and held out two hands to Pelleas. “Oh, sir,” she said, “I can help you. I have on rubber boots.” Surely no interfering goddess ever arrived in a more practical frame of mind. When Pelleas was on his feet, looking about him in a dazed and rather unforgiving fashion, the little maid caught off her crimson muffler and brushed his coat. Pelleas, with bared head, made her as courtly a bow as his foothold permitted, and she continued to stand somewhat shyly before us with the prettiest anxiety on her face, shaking the snow from her crimson muffler. “You are not hurt, sir?” she asked, and seemed so vastly relieved at his reassurance that she quite won our hearts. “Now,” she said, “won’t you let me walk with you? My rubber boots will do for all three.” We each accepted her arm without the smallest protest. I will hazard that no shipwrecked sailor ever inquired of the rescuing sail whether he was inconveniencing it. Once safely aboard, however, and well under way, he may have symbolized his breeding to the extent of offering a faint, polite resistance. As “Shall we not be putting you out?” Pelleas inquired, never offering to release her arm.