Dorothy was frightened and surprised, and quickly asked:
“How can anybody call that ‘sport’ which is as dangerous as that? What do you mean? I reckon I won’t go. I’ll just watch you.”
It was Winifred’s turn to stare, but she was also disappointed.
“Oh! you little ‘Fraid-Cat,’ I thought you were never afraid of anything. That’s why I liked you. One why—and there are other whys—but don’t you back out in this. Don’t you dare. When you’ve got that be-a-u-tiful rig and a be-a-u-tiful toboggan to match. I’d hate to blush for you, Queen Baltimore!”
“I have no toboggan, Winnie, dear. You know that. I was wondering who’d take me on theirs—if—if I try it at all.”
Winifred rushed to the other side of the porch and came flying back, carrying over her head a toboggan, so light and finely polished that it shone; also a lovely cushion of pink and white dragged from one hand. This fitted the flat bottom of the sled and was held in place, when used, by silver catches. The whole toboggan was of this one polished board, curving upward in front according to the most approved form, pink tassels floating from its corners that pink silk cords held in their place. Across this curving front was stenciled in pink: “Dorothy Calvert.”
“There, girlie, what do you say to that? Isn’t it marked plainly enough? Didn’t you know about it before? Why all we girls have been just wild with envy of you, ever since we saw it among the others.”
Dorothy almost caught her breath. It certainly was a beauty, that toboggan! But how came she to have it?
“What do you mean, Winifred Christie? Do you suppose the Bishop has had it made, or bought it, for me? Looks as if it had cost a lot. And Aunt Betty has lost so much money she can’t afford to pay for extra things—not very high ones—”