Pierce halted, and with bent head was studying the phenomenon, when close above him he heard the rush of a swiftly approaching body; he looked up just in time to behold an apparition utterly unexpected, utterly astounding. Swooping directly down upon him with incredible velocity was what seemed at first glance to be a bird-woman, a valkyr out of the pages of Norse mythology. Wingless she was, yet she came like the wind, and at the very instant Pierce raised his eyes she took the air almost over his head--quite as if he had startled her into an upward flight. Upon her feet was a pair of long, Norwegian skees, and upon these she had scudded down the mountain-side; where the bank dropped away she had leaped, and now, like a meteor, she soared into space. This amazing creature was clad in a blue-and-white toboggan suit, short skirt, sweater jacket, and knitted cap. As she hung outlined against the wintry sky Pierce caught a snap-shot glimpse of a fair, flushed, youthful face set in a ludicrous expression of open-mouthed dismay at sight of him. He heard, too, a high-pitched cry, half of warning, half of fright; the next instant there was a mighty upheaval of snow, an explosion of feathery white, as the human projectile landed, then a blur of blue-and-white stripes as it went rolling down the declivity. "Good Lord!" Pierce cried, aghast; then he sped after the apparition. Only for the evidence of that undignified tumble, he would have doubted the reality of this flying Venus and considered her some creature of his imagination. There she lay, however, a thing of flesh and blood, bruised, broken, helpless; apprehensively he pictured himself staggering back to town with her in his arms. He halted, speechless, when the girl sat up, shook the snow out of her hair, gingerly felt one elbow, then the other, and finally burst into a peal of ringing laughter. The face she lifted to his, now that it wore a normal expression, was wholly charming; it was, in fact, about the freshest, the cleanest, the healthiest and the frankest countenance he had ever looked into. "Glory be!" he stammered. "I thought you were--completely spoiled." "I'm badly twisted," the girl managed to gasp, "but I guess I'm all here. Oh! What a bump!" "You scared me. I never dreamed--I didn't hear a thing until-- Well, I looked up and there you were. The sky was full of you. Gee! I thought I'd lost my mind. Are you quite sure you're all right?" "Oh, I'll be black and blue again, but I'm used to that. That's the funniest one I've had, the very funniest. Why don't you laugh?" "I'm--too rattled, I suppose. I'm not accustomed to flying girls. Never had them rain down on me out of the heavens." The girl's face grew sober. "You're entirely to blame," she cried, angrily. "I was getting it beautifully until you showed up. You popped right out of the ground. What are you doing in the Queen's Park, anyhow? You've no business at the royal sports." "I didn't mean to trespass."