scholar; so she applied herself closely to her task, and before recitation
hour arrived she had learned every word of her lesson. But alas for poor
Fanny. She was always stumbling into some new difficulty, and fate, this
afternoon, seemed resolved to play a sorry trick upon her.

The schoolhouse stood at the foot of a long, steep hill, which would have
been chosen for a capital sliding place by New York boys; but in Kentucky
the winters are, comparatively speaking, so mild that the boys know but
little of that rare fun, "sliding down hill." The winter of which we are
speaking was, however, unusually severe, and the schoolboys had persevered
until they had succeeded in making a tolerably nice sliding place, and
they had also furnished themselves with a goodly number of rather
rough-looking sleds, of which Bill Jeffrey owned the largest. The girls
were all anxious to try a ride down the hill, and none more so than Fanny;
but the boys would not lend their sleds, and the girls would not ride with
the boys, and as the latter always hid their precious sleighs, the girls
had as yet never succeeded in their wishes. But on this day, Bill Jeffrey,
touched by Fanny’s unlooked-for kindness, whispered to her, just as school
was commencing, that she might take his big sled at recess.

This was a treat indeed, and when recess came, Fanny, with half a dozen
other girls, climbed to the top of the hill, and began piling on to Bill’s
old sled. It was settled that Fanny should guide the craft, and numerous
were the cautions of the girls that she should "mind and steer straight."

"Oh, yes, I’ll do that," said Fanny; "but wouldn’t it be funny," added
she, "if we should make a mistake and go plump into the schoolhouse!"

At last all was ready, and the vehicle got under way. At first it moved
slowly, and the loud, merry laugh of the girls rang out on the clear, cool