the board; and Nettle, my dear little terrier, standing shivering on
three legs, sniffing distrustfully at the sledge. It is extremely
difficult even to take one's place on a board a dozen inches wide.
My petticoats have to be firmly wrapped around me, and care taken
that no fold projects beyond the sledge, or I should be soon dragged
out of my frail seat. I fix my feet firmly against the batten, and
F--- cries, "Are you ready?" "Oh, not yet!" I gasp, clinging to Mr.
U---'s hand as if I never meant to let it go. "Hold tight!" he
shouts. Now what a mockery this injunction was. I had nothing to
hold on to except my own knees, and I clasped them convulsively.
Mr. U--- says, "You're all right now," and before I can realize that
he has let go my hand, before my courage is half-way up to the
necessary height, we are off. The breaks are slightly depressed for
the first few yards, in order to regulate our pace, and because
there is a tremendously steep pitch just at first. Once we have
safely passed that he tilts up the standards, and our sledge shoots
like a meteor down the perfectly smooth incline. I cannot draw my
breath, we are going at such a pace through the keen air; I give
myself up for lost. We come to another steep pitch near the bottom
of the hill; F--- is laughing to such a degree at me that he does
not put down his breaks soon enough, and loses control of the
sledge. We appear to leap down the dip, and then the sledge turns
first one way and then the other, its zinc prow being sometimes
up-hill and some-times down. It seems wonderful that we keep on the
sledge, for we have no means of holding on except by pressing our
feet against the battens; yet in the grand and final upset at the
bottom of the hill, the sledge is there too, and we find we have
never parted company from it.

Will any one believe that after such a perilous journey, I could