that his skill was as nothing to that of the Swedish professionals at St Moritz, could assuredly slide over snow in manner prodigious and beautiful.  And he was exquisitely clothed for the part.  His knickerbockers, in the elegance of their lines, were the delight of beholders.  Ski-ing became the rage.  Even Nellie insisted on hiring a pair.  And the pronunciation of the word “ski” aroused long discussions and was never definitely settled by anybody.  The Captain said “skee,” but he did not object to “shee,” which was said to be the more strictly correct by a lady who knew some one who had been to Norway.  People with no shame and no feeling for correctness said brazenly, “sky.”  Denry, whom nothing could induce to desert his luge, said that obviously “s-k-i” could only spell “planks.”  And thanks to his inspiration this version was adopted by the majority.

On the second day of Nellie’s struggle with her skis she had more success than she either anticipated or desired.  She had been making experiments at the summit of the track, slithering about, falling, and being restored to uprightness by as many persons as happened to be near.  Skis seemed to her to be the most ungovernable and least practical means of travel that the madness of man had ever concocted.  Skates were well-behaved old horses compared to these long, untamed fiends, and a luge was like a tricycle.  Then suddenly a friendly starting push drove her a yard or two, and she glided past the level on to the first imperceptible slope of the track.  By some hazard her two planks were exactly parallel, as they ought to be, and she glided forward miraculously.  And people heard her say: 

“How lovely!”

And then people heard her say: 

“Oh!...  Oh!”

For her pace was increasing.  And she dared not strike her pole into the ground.  She had, in fact, no control whatever over those two planks to which her feet were strapped.  She might have been Mazeppa and they mustangs.  She could not even fall.  So she fled down the preliminary straight of the track, and ecstatic spectators cried:  “Look how well Mrs Machin is doing!”

Mrs Machin would have given all her furs to be anywhere off those planks.  On the adjacent fields of glittering snow the Captain had been giving his adored Countess a lesson in the use of skis; and they stood together, the Countess somewhat insecure, by the side of the track at its first curve.

Nellie, dumb with excitement and amazement, swept towards them.

“Look out!” cried the Captain.

In vain!  He himself might perhaps have escaped, but he could not abandon his Countess in the moment of peril, and the Countess could only move after much thought and many efforts, being scarce more advanced than Nellie.  Nellie’s wilful planks quite ignored the curve, and, as it were afloat on them, she charged off the track, and into the Captain and the Countess.  The impact was tremendous.