TWO ACCIDENTS AND A MYSTERY

February 17. I'm writing this under a good deal of difficulty, for my left hand is in a sling and this blank-book slips around dreadfully. The truth is that I had quite an accident the other day, and have been laid up ever since. It was the day after I last wrote in my journal. We'd had a heavy fall of snow overnight, followed by a hard frost. The coasting on Eastward Hill was gorgeous, and we spent the whole of the next afternoon there. Just at the last the Imp suggested that we try the slide down the north slope of the hill. It's ever so much steeper than the one we usually take, and is considered rather dangerous.

Louis said we'd better not, but the Imp begged so hard that we agreed to try it just once. So Louis took Carol on his bobsled, and the Imp and I had the other. She was steering, because she's awfully good at that. They went first, and we followed. Everything went finely at the start. It's the most exciting thing going down that steep slide, and I was just enjoying it when suddenly something went wrong. I'm not sure yet just what it was, but the Imp says there must have been a buried branch or something under one of our runners.

Anyhow, the first I knew I was lying with my head in a snowbank and my left arm doubled under me in the queerest manner. The Imp had been landed in the bank, too, but she wasn't a bit hurt and was up in a jiffy, dragging me out. First I thought I was all right, but when I stood up my left arm began to hurt me so that I thought I'd die with the pain of it. They put me on one of the sleds and hustled me home in a hurry, and Louis went for the doctor.

He said it was only a sprain, but that I must stay in the house for a while and take good care of it. So here I've been ever since. The Imp has been an angel. That sounds funny, but I mean it! She nearly died of remorse at having been the cause of my accident, and she can't do enough for me. She waits on me hand and foot, and hasn't teased or been a bit exasperating once. To show how angelic she can be, I must write what she told me yesterday. She came in from a walk to the village, where she'd been to get me some grapefruit, and announced:

"What do you think? I walked back most of the way with Monsieur. His things have come."

"What things?" I asked, astonished, for I knew that his trunks came the day after he arrived.

"Oh, didn't you know? A few things he brought with him. Two or three pictures and a big lot of 

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