as if you always could do what you have to," answered
Betty, starting off.

She decided presently that dust-pan coasting was not so much fun as it
looked. Mary Brooks, coming to find her and ask her to join a racing
tournament captained by herself and Marion Lawrence, declared noisily
that she was having "the time of her gay young life," but Betty after
the first coast or two began to think of going home. Perhaps it was
because she was so tired. It seemed so much trouble to walk up on the
slippery crust and such a long way round by the path. So she refused to
enter the tournament. "I'm not going to stay long enough," she
explained. "I shall just have two more slides. Then I'm going home to
take a nap. That's my best antidote for overstudy."

The next coast was nicer. Perhaps the dust-pan had been too new. The
Belden House freshman said that hers went better since her roommate had
used it and scraped off all the paint in a collision.

"I wonder there aren't more collisions," said Betty, preparing for her
last slide.

Half-way down she discovered that the other freshman and the rest hadn't
started--that the hill was almost clear. Then somebody called shrilly,
"Look out, Miss Wales." She turned her head back toward the voice, the
dust-pan swirled, and she turned back again to find herself slipping
rapidly sidewise straight toward a little lady who was walking serenely
along the path that cut the coast at right angles. She was a
faculty--Betty hadn't the least idea what her name was, but she had
noticed her on the "faculty row" at chapel. In an instant more she was
certainly going to run into her. Betty dug her heels frantically into
the crust. It would not break.

"Oh, I beg your pardon, but I can't stop!" she called.

At that the little lady, who was walking rapidly with her head bent
against the wind, looked up and apparently for the first time noticed
the dust-pan coasters. Mirth and confusion overcame her. She stopped an
instant to laugh, then started back, then changed her mind and dashed
wildly forward, with the inevitable result that she fell in an
undignified heap on top of Betty and the dust-pan. The accident took
place on the edge of the path where the crust was jagged and icy. Betty,
who had gone head-first through it, emerged with a bleeding scratch on
one cheek and a stinging, throbbing wrist. Fortunately her companion was
not hurt.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" sighed Betty, trying to brush the snow off her
v