There wasn’t time! Dorothy felt a little quiver run through the thing on which she sat and a wild rush through icy air! That was all! They had reached the bottom of the first slide and began to fly upward over the other before she realized a thing. Gwen hadn’t even finished her directions before they had “arrived!”
The Southerner was too amazed, for a second, to even step off the toboggan, but Gwendolyn caught her up, gave her a hearty kiss and hug, and demanded:
“Well! Here we are! How do you like it! We’ve beat! We’ve beat!”
Dorothy rubbed her eyes. So they had, for at that instant the big Oak Knowe fetched up beside them, and its occupants stepped or tumbled off, throwing up their hands and cheering:
“Three cheers for the Dorothy Calvert! Queen of the Slide for all This Year!”
And liveliest among the cheerers was the once so dignified young “Peer,” the Honorable Gwen. Dorothy looking into her beaming face and hearing her happy voice could scarce believe this to be the same girl she had hitherto known. But she had scant time to think for here they came, thick and fast, toboggan after toboggan, Seventh Form girls and Minims, teachers and pupils, the Bishop and the chef, maids and men-servants, the matron and old Michael—all in high spirits, all apparently talking at once and so many demanding of “Miss Dixie” how she liked it, that she could answer nobody.
Then the Bishop pushed back her tasseled hood and smiled into her shining eyes:
“Well little ‘Betty the Second,’ can you beat that down at old Baltimore? What do you think now? Isn’t it fine—fine? Doesn’t it make you feel you’re a bird of the air? Ah! it’s grand—grand. Just tell me you like it and I’ll let you go.”
“I—Yes—I reckon I do! I hadn’t time to think. We hadn’t started, and we were here.”
“Up we go. Try her again!” cried one, and the climb back to the top promptly began, the men carrying the heavier sleds, the girls their lighter ones, Gwendolyn and Dorothy their own between them. Then the fun all over again; the jests at awkward starts, the cheers at skillful ones, the laughter and good will, till all felt the exhilaration of the moment and every care was forgotten.