When she was clear of the shop and crossing the road with the toboggan slithering meekly behind, the invisible distant slopes seemed lonely and her plan for getting immediately away to them postponed itself in favour of enjoying for a while the thrilled equilibrium with everything about her that was the gift of the slight pull on the cord she was trying to hold with an air of preoccupied negligence. Turning leisurely back from the short length of street ahead that too soon would show the open country, she came once more into the heart of the village and paid an unnecessary visit to the post-office, heard the toboggan pull up against the kerb and knew as she turned to abandon the cord that she had tasted the utmost of this new joy, and that when once more the cord was in her hands she must go forth and venture. Out on the road beyond the village the pleasant even slithering alternated with little silent weightless runs, that at first made her glance back to see if the toboggan were still there. These little runs, increasing as the road began to slope came like reminders of its character, assertions of its small willingness for its task, enhancing its charm, calling her to turn and survey as she went its entrancing behaviour of a little toboggan. But presently, and as if grown weary of gentle hints and feeling the necessity of stating more forcibly the meaning of its presence out here in the glittering stillness, it took a sudden run at her heels. Moving sideways ahead she reduced it to its proper place in the procession until the distance between them set it once more in motion. Overtaking her it made a half turn, slid a little way broadside and pulled up, facing her, in a small hollow, indignant. In the mercifully empty yet not altogether unobservant landscape it assumed the proportions of a living thing and seemed to say as she approached: “You _can’t_ bring me out here and make a fool of me.” And indeed, even with no one in sight, she could not allow herself to walk down the slope with the toboggan ahead and pulling like a dog. She might go back, make a détour on the level round about the village, turn the afternoon into a walk and postpone until to-morrow the adventure for which now she had neither courage nor desire. In choosing the time when there would be fewest people abroad she had forgotten that it was also the lowest point of the day. Even this first day had a lowest point. And belated prudence, reminding her that she had come away to rest, cast a chill over the empty landscape, changing it from reality to a picture of a reality seen long ago. At the sight of it she turned and went a few paces up the gradient and perched and gathered up the length of cord, and life came back into the wastes of snow, the mountains were real again, quiet in the motionless afternoon light, and the absurd little toboggan a foe about to be vanquished.