e, no
doubt in reference to my complexion. Plain as I am now, I was a great
deal plainer as a girl, though I dare say you wouldn't think it."

Winn made no comment upon this doubtful statement; he merely grunted.
His private opinion was that ladies of any age should not ride the
Cresta, and that ladies old enough to have known his father at Hong-Kong
should not toboggan at all.

It was unsuitable, and she might have hurt herself; into these two
pitfalls women should never fall.

Miss Marley had a singularly beautiful speaking voice; it was as soft as
velvet. She dropped it half a tone, and said suddenly:

"Look here, don't do that kind of thing again. It's foolish. People
don't always get killed, you know; sometimes they get maimed. Forgive
me, but I thought I would just like to point it out to you. I could not
bear to see a strong man maimed."

Winn knew that it was silly and weak to like her just because of the
tone of her voice, but he found himself liking her. He had a vague
desire to tell her that he wouldn't do it again and that he had been
rather a fool; but the snow was behaving in a queer way all around him;
it appeared to be heaving itself up. He said instead:

"Excuse me for sitting down like this. I've had a bit of a shake. I'll
be all right in a moment or two." Then he fainted.

Miss Marley stooped over him, opened his collar, laid him flat on the
ground--he had fallen in a heap on his toboggan--and chafed his wrists
and forehead with snow. When she saw that he was coming round, she moved
a little away from him and studied his toboggan.

"If I were you," she observed, "I should have these runners cut a little
finer; they are just a shade too thick."

Winn dragged himself on to the toboggan and wondered how his collar came
to be undone. When he did it up, he found his hands were shaking, which
amazed him very much. He looked a little suspiciously at his companion.

"Of course," Miss Marley continued pleasantly, "I ought to have that
watchman discharged. I am a member of the Cresta committee, and he
behaved scandalously; but I dare say you forced him into it, so I shall
just walk up the hill and give him a few straight words. Probably you
don't know the dialect. I've made a point of studying it. If I were you,
I should stay where you are until I come back. I want you to come to tea
with me at Cresta. There's a particularly good kind of bun in the
village, and I think I can give you some rather usef