daughter of Canada.

In the meantime Bluebell, in the strangest of spirits, refused to
relinquish the reins, even in difficult places, and conducted herself
generally with a mixture of recklessness and ignorance that gave Jack
enough to do to look out.

He rather took advantage of this mood to make more decided love than he
had hitherto done; but while he thought her wild with fun and spirits,
she was really goaded on by vexation and bitterness of heart; and perhaps
her most immediate wish was for solitude to drop the mask and be
miserable in peace.

That was impossible, at present. Jack was tiresome. He was giving
her directions how to steer up a hill, formidable from its narrow
track and deep drop on either side. Dahlia, it seemed, jibbed sometimes,
she must--Bluebell was paying no attention. Good Heavens! what was
happening?--the leader backing and sliding! Jack's stinging whip and
clutch at the reins could not arrest the catastrophe. Dahlia rears and
falls over the edge, pulling sleigh and wheeler after her into a trough
of snow.

Bluebell blinded and half suffocated--no wonder, for three bear-skins and
two cushions were a-top of her (not to mention Jack, who had caught his
leg in the reins, and was unable immediately to rise),--made vain efforts
to extricate himself; the horses were struggling on their sides; and
altogether, as the Americans say, it was rather "mixed."

Somehow or another, no one ever does get hurt out of a sleigh, even after
an _impromptu_ header of a dozen feet. Ten minutes later the party were