ss; a line of footprints in the middle where some labourer had
passed, and the long stretch of white fields, broken by lines of black
poplars running straight away to the forest.

While we were standing at the gate talking to old Antoine, who was all
muffled up with a woollen comforter tied over his cap, and socks over
his shoes, we saw a small moving object in the distance. As it came
nearer we made out it was the postman, also so muffled up as to be
hardly recognizable. He too had woollen socks over his shoes, and said
the going was something awful, the "Montagne de Marolles" a sheet of
ice; he had fallen twice, in spite of his socks and pointed stick. He
said neither butcher nor baker would come--that no horse could get up
the hill.

We sent him into the kitchen to thaw, and have his breakfast. That was
one also of the traditions of the chateau; the postman always
breakfasted. On Sundays, when there was no second delivery, he brought
his little girl and an accordion, and remained all the afternoon. He
often got a lift back to La Ferte, when the carriage was going in to
the station, or the chef to market in the donkey-cart. _Now_ many of
the postmen have bicycles.

We had a curious feeling of being quite cut off from the outside
world. The children, Francis and Alice, were having a fine time in the
stable-yard, where the men had made them two snow figures--man and
woman (giants)--and they were pelting them with snowballs and tumbling
headlong into the heaps of snow on each side of the gate, where a
passage had been cleared for the horses.

We thought it would be a good opportunity to do a little coasting and
inaugurate a sled we had had made with great difficulty the year
before. It was rather a long operation. The wheelwright at Marolles
had never seen anything of the kind, had no idea _what_ we wanted.
Fortunately Francis had a little sled which one of his cousins had
sent him from America; and with that as a model, and many
explanations, the wheelwright and the blacksmith produced really a
very creditable sled--quite large, a seat for two in front, and one
behind for the person who steered. Only when the sled was finished the
snow had disappeared! It rarely lasts long in France.

We had the sled brought out--the runners needed a little
repairing--and the next day made our first attempt. There was not much
danger of meeting anything. A sort of passage had been cleared, and
gravel sprinkled in the middle of the