Fenella bit her lip and suppressed a vulgar inclination to scream. The toboggan seemed to fall headlong—to rebound—to shoot out with the evident intention of either burying itself in the embankment or of leaping it altogether. When its nose was not more than ten yards away she felt the speed suddenly slacken, the toboggan slewed round with a twist that nearly overset it, and, steadying, slipped swiftly and cleanly round a wide curve. Almost before the rapture of the unaccustomed motion had been realized, it came to a stop, for want of snow, in the shadow of the prior's garden.
"How do you like it?" asked cousin Jack, brushing the snow off his sleeve.
"Oh, Jack!"—Fenella pressed her mittened hands together—"it's—it's glorious!"
Barbour smiled at her glowing face. "Pooh! You should see the real thing. Ask Lumsden. He did the Kloster in five-fifteen once."
"Is he very good at it?"
"He's good at everything he takes up," said Jack, unreservedly. "How do you like him, Flash? I forgot to ask."
Jack Barbour had heard of this old school nickname from a brother officer who had had a sister at Sharland College and seldom called her by any other.
"M—m—pretty well. Is he really a cousin of—of—ours?"
"Not really, I think. It's a kind of old joke."
"Why is he so much at home here, then, Jack?"