Kavanagh laughed, but found no support from Lily Kennaird. She, grown a little less pale in the glorious freshness of the morning, was more concerned with the difficulties of the uncouth implements they had strapped to her boots than with any question of flight and its consequences. How awkward she felt! How impossible it seemed to do anything at all with those great wooden skates, so much taller than she was, and so exceedingly slippery. "Now," said the parson, who had fixed his own skis and become a little more anxious when he had done so, "just shuffle along without lifting your feet, if you can; it’s quite easy to walk up—-the coming down is the difficulty. We’ll go to the slopes by the Park Hotel and find a very gentle one. I’m sure you’ll like it when you become accustomed to the balance. The great thing is not to be afraid." Kavanagh seconded this, and was in the act of showing her exactly how to place her feet, when he sat down without warning, and having remained some moments in an attitude of despair, explained that he had done it to show the ease with which one can rise when the boots and straps are all right. This process he repeated at intervals on their way to the Park Hotel; indeed, he proved a paragon of good nature in the matter. The fine weather of the previous day favoured them again, and the famous slopes were merry with the gambols of the players. Here there is a great basin of the snow with a lake at its depths and the white mountains towering high above it. The banks themselves are often gentle and rarely difficult; and hither go the inexperienced to be tutored by kindly masters, who are themselves but children at the game. On every side you hear the injunction not to be afraid—so pompously uttered, so difficult to obey. Elderly gentlemen, who would be more at home upon a rocking-horse, glide down gentle declivities and are proud of the success which follows them to the bottom. Spinsters, of far from mature aspect, sit down upon less than no provocation at all, and declare it to be glorious. The great white kindergarten is the merriest place in all the world—and the world is far distant from it. Parson Clavering had an excellent eye for an easy slope, and he chose one just suited to his own capacities. It was about three hundred yards from the chalet which Benny had hired, and that excellent fellow, looking out of the window and blaming his hard luck, forgot the latter employment when he espied the "little widow." How he envied the cheery parson, who was holding her arm; how he detested that gilded popinjay (Benny had got the expression from a novel) who stood by her side and smoked a cigarette as though he had hired the parson to do the manual work of which he himself would reap the fruit. But Benny carried his arm in a sling to-day, and even his zeal prompted no thought of skis. He was lucky to be alive.