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Peter Skerrett came sailing round the purple
rocks of his Point, skating like a man who has
been in the South of Europe for two winters.

He was decidedly Anglicized in his whiskers,
coat, and shoes. Otherwise he in all respects repeated
his well-known ancestor, Skerrett of the
Revolution; whose two portraits — 1. A ruddy
hero in regimentals, in Gilbert Stuart's early
brandy-and-water manner; 2. A rosy sage in senatorials,
in Stuart's later claret-and-water manner—
hang in his descendant's dining-room.

Peter's first look was a provokingly significant
one at the confused and blushing young lady. Secondly
he inspected the Dying Gladiator on the ice.

“Have you been tilting at this gentleman,
Mary?” he asked, in the voice of a cheerful,
friendly fellow. “Why! Hullo. Hooray! It 's
Wade, Richard Wade, Dick Wade! Don't look,
Miss Mary, while I give him the grips of all the
secret societies we belonged to in College.”

Mary, however, did look on, pleased and amused,
while Peter plumped down on the ice, shook his
friend's hand, and examined him as if he were fine
crockery, spilt and perhaps shattered.

“It 's not a case of trepanning, Dick, my boy?”
said he.

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“No,” said the other. “I tumbled in trying to
dodge this lady. The ice thought my face ought
to be scratched, because I had been scratching its
face without mercy. My wits were knocked out
of me; but they are tired of secession, and pleading
to be let in again.”

“Keep some of them out for our sake! We
must have you at our commonplace level. Well,
Miss Mary, I suppose this is the first time you
have had the sensation of breaking a man's head.
You generally hit lower.” Peter tapped his heart.

“I 'm all right now, thanks to my surgeon,”
says Wade. “Give me a lift, Peter.” He pulled
up and clung to his friend.

“You 're the vine and I 'm the lamp-post,”
Skerrett said. “Mary, do you know what a
pocket-pistol is?”

“I have seen such weapons concealed about the
persons of modern warriors.”

“There 's one in my overcoat-pocket, with a cup
at the but and a cork at the muzzle. Skate off
now, like an angel, and get it. Bring Fanny, too.
She is restorative.”

“Are you alive enough to admire that, Dick?”
he continued, as she skimmed away.

“It would put a soul under the ribs of Death.”

“I venerate that young woman,” says Peter.
“You see what a beauty she is, and just as unspoiled
as this ice. Unspoiled beauties are rarer
than rocs' eggs.”

“She has a singularly true face,” Wade replied,

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“and that is the main thing, — the most excellent
thing in man or woman.”

“Yes, truth makes that nuisance, beauty, tolerable.”

“You did not do me the honor to present me.”

“I saw you had gone a great way beyond that,
my boy. Have you not her initials in cambric on
your brow? Not M. T., which would n't apply;
but M. D.”

“Mary —?”

“Damer.”

“I like the name,” says Wade, repeating it.
“It sounds simple and thorough-bred.”

“Just what she is. One of the nine simple-hearted
and thorough-bred girls on this continent.”

“Nine?”

“Is that too many? Three, then. That 's one
in ten millions. The exact proportion of Poets,
Painters, Orators, Statesmen, and all other Great
Artists. Well, — three or nine, — Mary Damer is
one of them. She never saw fear or jealousy, or
knowingly allowed an ignoble thought or an ungentle
word or an ungraceful act in herself. Her
atmosphere does not tolerate flirtation. You must
find out for yourself how much genius she has and
has not. But I will say this, — that I think of puns
two a minute faster when I 'm with her. Therefore
she must be magnetic, and that is the first charm
in a woman.”

Wade laughed. “You have not lost your powers
of analysis, Peter. But talking of this

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heroine, you have not told me anything about yourself,
except apropos of punning.”

“Come up and dine, and we 'll fire away personal
histories, broadside for broadside! I 've been
looking in vain for a worthy hero to set vis-à-vis to
my fair kinswoman. But stop! perhaps you have
a Christmas turkey at home, with a wife opposite,
and a brace of boys waiting for drumsticks.”

“No, — my boys, like cherubs, await their own
drumsticks. They 're not born, and I 'm not married.”

“I thought you looked incomplete and abnormal.
Well, I will show you a model wife, — and here
she comes!”

Here they came, the two ladies, gliding round
the Point, with draperies floating as artlessly artful
as the robes of Raphael's Hours, or a Pompeian
Bacchante. For want of classic vase or patera, Miss
Damer brandished Peter Skerrett's pocket-pistol.

Fanny Skerrett gave her hand cordially to Wade,
and looked a little anxiously at his pale face.

“Now, M. D.,” says Peter, “you have been
surgeon, you shall be doctor and dose our patient.
Now, then, —


`Hebe, pour free!
Quicken his eyes with mountain-dew,
That Styx, the detested,
No more he may view.'”
“Thanks, Hebe!”
Wade said, continuing the quotation, —

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“We effeminate women of the nineteenth century
are afraid of broken heads,” said Fanny.
“But Mary Damer seems quite to enjoy your accident,
Mr. Wade, as an adventure.”

Miss Damer certainly did seem gay and exhilarated.

“I enjoy it,” said Wade. “I perceive that I
fell on my feet, when I fell on my crown. I tumbled
among old friends, and I hope among new
ones.”

“I have been waiting to claim my place among
your old friends,” Mrs. Skerrett said, “ever since
Peter told me you were one of his models.”

She delivered this little speech with a caressing
manner which totally fascinated Wade.

Nothing was ever so absolutely pretty as Mrs.
Peter Skerrett. Her complete prettiness left nothing
to be desired.

“Never,” thought Wade, “did I see such a
compact little casket of perfections. Every feature
is thoroughly well done and none intrusively superior.
Her little nose is a combination of all the
amiabilities. Her black eyes sparkle with fun and
mischief and wit, all playing over deep tenderness
below. Her hair ripples itself full of gleams and
shadows. The same coquetry of Nature that rippled
her hair has dinted her cheeks with shifting
dimples. Every time she smiles — and she smiles
as if sixty an hour were not half-allowance — a
dimple slides into view and vanishes like a dot in
a flow of sunny water. And, O Peter Skerrett! if

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you were not the best fellow in the world, I should
envy you that latent kiss of a mouth.”

“You need not say it, Wade, — your broken
head exempts you from the business of compliments,”
said Peter; “but I see you think my wife
perfection. You 'll think so the more, the more
you know her.”

“Stop, Peter,” said she, “or I shall have to
hide behind the superior charms of Mary Damer.”

Miss Damer certainly was a woman of a grander
order. You might pull at the bells or knock at
the knockers and be introduced into the boudoirs
of all the houses, villas, seats, chateaus,
and palaces in Christendom without seeing such
another. She belonged distinctly to the Northern
races, — the “brave and true and tender” women.
There was, indeed, a trace of hauteur
and imperiousness in her look and manner; but
it did not ill become her distinguished figure
and face. Wade, however, remembered her sweet
earnestness when she was playing leech to his
wound, and chose to take that mood as her dominant
one.

“She must have been desperately annoyed with
bores and boobies,” he thought. “I do not wonder
she protects herself by distance. I am afraid
I shall never get within her lines again, — not
even if I should try slow and regular approaches,
and bombard her with bouquets for a twelve-month.”

“But, Wade,” says Peter, “all this time you

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have not told us what good luck sends you here
to be wrecked on the hospitable shores of my
Point.”

“I live here. I am chief cook and confectioner
where you see the smoking top of that tall chimney
up-stream.”

“Why, of course! What a dolt I was, not to
think of you, when Churm told us an Athlete, a
Brave, a Sage, and a Gentleman was the Superintendent
of Dunderbunk; but said we must find
his name out for ourselves. You remember, Mary.
Miss Damer is Mr. Churm's ward.”

She acknowledged with a cool bow that she did
remember her guardian's character of Wade.

“You do not say, Peter,” says Mrs. Skerrett,
with a bright little look at the other lady, “why
Mr. Churm was so mysterious about Mr. Wade.”

“Miss Damer shall tell us,” Peter rejoined, repeating
his wife's look of merry significance.

She looked somewhat teased. Wade could divine
easily the meaning of this little mischievous
talk. His friend Churm had no doubt puffed him
furiously.

“All this time,” said Miss Damer, evading a
reply, “we are neglecting our skating privileges.”

“Peter and I have a few grains of humanity in
our souls,” Fanny said. “We should blush to
sail away from Mr. Wade, while he carries the
quarantine flag at his pale cheeks.”

“I am almost ruddy again,” says Wade. “Your
potion, Miss Damer, has completed the work of

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your surgery. I can afford to dismiss my lamp-post.”

“Whereupon the post changes to a teetotum,”
Peter said, and spun off in an eccentric, ending in
a tumble.

“I must have a share in your restoration, Mr.
Wade,” Fanny claimed. “I see you need a second
dose of medicine. Hand me the flask, Mary-What
shall I pour from this magic bottle? juice of
Rhine, blood of Burgundy, fire of Spain, bubble
of Rheims, beeswing of Oporto, honey of Cyprus,
nectar, or whiskey? Whiskey is vulgar, but the
proper thing, on the whole, for these occasions. I
prescribe it.” And she gave him another little
draught to imbibe.

He took it kindly, for her sake, — and not alone
for that, but for its own respectable sake. His recovery
was complete. His head, to be sure, sang
a little still, and ached not a little. Some fellows
would have gone on the sick list with such a wound.
Perhaps he would, if he had had a trouble to dodge.
But here instead was a pleasure to follow. So he
began to move about slowly, watching the ladies.

Fanny was a novice in the Art, and this was her
first day this winter. She skated timidly, holding
Peter very tightly. She went into the dearest little
panics for fear of tumbles, and uttered the most
musical screams and laughs. And if she succeeded
in taking a few brave strokes and finished with a
neat slide, she pleaded for a verdict of “Well
done!” with such an appealing smile and such a

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fine show of dimples that every one was fascinated
and applauded heartily.

Miss Damer skated as became her free and vigorous
character. She had passed her Little Go as a
scholar, and was now steadily winning her way
through the list of achievements, before given, toward
the Great Go. To-day she was at work at
small circles backward. Presently she wound off
a series of perfectly neat ones, and, looking up,
pleased with her prowess, caught Wade's admiring
eye. At this she smiled and gave an arch little
womanly nod of self-approval, which also demanded
masculine sympathy before it was quite a perfect
emotion.

With this charming gesture, the alert feather in
her Amazonian hat nodded, too, as if it admired its
lovely mistress.

Wade was thrilled. “Brava!” he cried, in answer
to the part of her look which asked sympathy;
and then, in reply to the implied challenge,
he forgot his hurt and his shock, and struck into
the same figure.

He tried not to surpass his fair exemplar too cruelly.
But he did his peripheries well enough to get
a repetition of the captivating nod and a Bravo!
from the lady.

“Bravo!” said she. “But do not tax your
strength too soon.”

She began to feel that she was expressing too
much interest in the stranger. It was a new sensation
for her to care whether men fell or got up.

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A new sensation. She rather liked it. She was
a trifle ashamed of it. In either case, she did
not wish to show that it was in her heart. The
consciousness of concealment flushed her damask
cheek.

It was a damask cheek. All her hues were cool
and pearly; while Wade, Saxon too, had hot golden
tints in his hair and moustache, and his color,
now returning, was good strong red with plenty of
bronze in it.

“Thank you,” he replied. “My force has all
come back. You have electrified me.”

A civil nothing; but meaning managed to get
into his tone and look, whether he would or not.

Which he perceiving, on his part began to feel
guilty.

Of what crime?

Of the very same crime as hers, — the most ancient
and most pardonable crime of youth and
maiden, — that sweet and guiltless crime of love in
the first degree.

So, without troubling themselves to analyze their
feelings, they found a piquant pleasure in skating
together, — she in admiring his tours de force, and
he in instructing her.

“Look, Peter!” said Mrs. Skerrett, pointing to
the other pair skating, he on the backward roll, she
on the forward, with hands crossed and locked; —
such contacts are permitted in skating, as in dancing.
“Your hero and my heroine have dropped
into an intimacy.”

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“None but the Plucky deserve the Pretty,” says
Peter.

“But he seems to be such a fine fellow, — suppose
she should n't —”

The pretty face looked anxious.

“Suppose he should n't,” Peter on the masculine
behalf returned.

“He cannot help it: Mary is so noble, — and so
charming, when she does not disdain to be.”

“I do not believe she can help it. She cannot
disdain Wade. He carries too many guns for that.
He is just as fine as she is. He was a hero when I
first knew him. His face does not show an atom
of change; and you know what Mr. Churm told us
of his chivalric deeds elsewhere, and how he tamed
and reformed Dunderbunk. He is crystal grit, as
crystalline and gritty as he can be.”

“Grit seems to be your symbol of the highest
qualities. It certainly is a better thing in man
than in ice-cream. But, Peter, suppose this should
be a true love and should not run smooth?”

“What consequence is the smooth running, so
long as there is strong running and a final getting
in neck and neck at the winning-post?”

“But,” still pleaded the anxious soul, — having
no anxieties of her own, she was always suffering
for others, — “he seems to be such a fine fellow!
and she is so hard to win!”

“Am I a fine fellow?”

“No, — horrid!”

“The truth, — or I let you tumble.”

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“Well, upon compulsion, I admit that you are.”

“Then being a fine fellow does not diminish the
said fellow's chances of being blessed with a wife
quite superfine.”

“If I thought you were personal, Peter, I should
object to the mercantile adjective. `Superfine,'
indeed!”

“I am personal. I withdraw the obnoxious
phrase, and substitute transcendent. No, Fanny
dear, I read Wade's experience in my own. I do
not feel very much concerned about him. He is
big enough to take care of himself. A man who
is sincere, self-possessed, and steady does not get
into miseries with beautiful Amazons like our
friend. He knows too much to try to make his
love run up hill; but let it once get started, rough
running gives it vim. Wade will love like a deluge,
when he sees that he may, and I 'd advise
obstacles to stand off.”

“It was pretty, Peter, to see cold Mary Damer
so gentle and almost tender.”

“I always have loved to see the first beginnings
of what looks like love, since I saw ours.”

“Ours,” she said, — “it seems like yesterday.”

And then together they recalled that fair picture
against its dark ground of sorrow, and so went
on refreshing the emotions of that time until Fanny
smiling said, —

“There must be something magical in skates,
for here we are talking sentimentally like a pair of
young lovers.”

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“Health and love are cause and effect,” says
Peter, sententiously.

Meanwhile Wade had been fast skating into the
good graces of his companion. Perhaps the rap
on his head had deranged him. He certainly tossed
himself about in a reckless and insane way. Still
he justified his conduct by never tumbling again,
and by inventing new devices with bewildering
rapidity.

This pair were not at all sentimental. Indeed,
their talk was quite technical: all about rings and
edges, and heel and toe, — what skates are best,
and who best use them. There is an immense
amount of sympathy to be exchanged on such
topics, and it was somewhat significant that they
avoided other themes where they might not sympathize
so thoroughly. The negative part of a
conversation is often as important as its positive.

So the four entertained themselves finely, sometimes
as a quartette, sometimes as two duos with
proper changes of partners, until the clear west
began to grow golden and the clear east pink with
sunset.

“It is a pity to go,” said Peter Skerrett.
“Everything here is perfection and Fine Art; but
we must not be unfaithful to dinner. Dinner
would have a right to punish us, if we did not
encourage its efforts to be Fine Art also.”

“Now, Mr. Wade,” Fanny commanded, “your
most heroic series of exploits, to close this heroic
day.”

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He nimbly dashed through his list. The ice was
traced with a labyrinth of involuted convolutions.

Wade's last turn brought him to the very spot
of his tumble.

“Ah!” said he. “Here is the oar that tripped
me, with `Wade, his mark,' gashed into it. If I
had not this” — he touched Miss Damer's handkerchief—
“for a souvenir, I think I would dig up
the oar and carry it home.”

“Let it melt out and float away in the spring,”
Mary said. “It may be a perch for a sea-gull or
a buoy for a drowning man.”

Here, if this were a long story instead of a short
one, might be given a description of Peter Skerrett's
house and the menu of Mrs. Skerrett's
dinner. Peter and his wife had both been to great
pillory dinners, ad nauseam, and learnt what to
avoid. How not to be bored is the object of all
civilization, and the Skerretts had discovered the
methods.

I must dismiss the dinner and the evening,
stamped with the general epithet, Perfection.

“You will join us again to-morrow on the river,”
said Mrs. Skerrett, as Wade rose to go.

“To-morrow I go to town to report to my Directors.”

“Then next day.”

“Next day, with pleasure.”

Wade departed and marked this halcyon day
with white chalk, as the whitest, brightest, sweetest
of his life.

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