"Does it?"
"Keep hold of the chair, push it gently before you, and try to balance yourself as well as you can," continues he, giving grave instructions to his new pupil.
"How can one balance oneself on things no bigger than knife-blades?" she asks, grasping desperately the chair-back.
"Rome was not built in a day," he answers, with a cheery laugh; "try!"
She obeys, and moves forward two or three timid inches; then stops again.
"I have that poor gentleman's fate before my mind's eye," she says, nervously. "I feel as if, by some natural attraction, one's feet must go up sky-wards, and one's head make acquaintance with the ice."
"No necessity at all," replies the young man, encouragingly. "That fellow is a duffer at everything; he is the very worst rider I ever set eyes on—holds his whip like a fishing-rod."
"Does he?"
"Look at that girl, now, with the purple feather! She skims along like a bird; she is as much at her ease as if she were in her arm-chair at home. By Jove! no, she ain't though!" For, as he speaks, "Thud!" comes the girl with the purple feather down in a sitting posture on the ice: men crowd round, inquire into casualties, pick her up again: off she goes!
"You must be more careful next time in your selection of examples," Esther says, smiling mischievously; "that one was not encouraging, you must allow."