Braced by his lunch on the brown fibre of good Mrs. Purtett’s cold drumstick and thigh, Wade was now in fine trim.  The air was more glittering and electric than ever.  It was triumph and victory and paean in action to go flashing along over this footing, smoother than polished marble and sheenier than first-water gems.

Wade felt the high exhilaration of pure blood galloping through a body alive from top to toe.  The rhythm of his movement was like music to him.

The Point ended in a sharp promontory.  Just before he came abreast of it, Wade under mighty headway flung into his favorite corkscrew spiral on one foot, and went whirling dizzily along, round and round, in a straight line.

At the dizziest moment, he was suddenly aware of a figure, also turning the Point at full speed, and rushing to a collision.

He jerked aside to avoid it.  He could not look to his footing.  His skate struck a broken oar, imbedded in the ice.  He fell violently, and lay like a dead man.

His New Skates, Testimonial of Merit, seem to have served him a shabby trick.

CHAPTER VIII.

TETE-A-TETE.

Seeing Wade lie there motionless, the lady——­

Took off her spectacles, blew her great red nose, and stiffly drew near.

Spectacles!  Nose!  No,—­the latter feature of hers had never become acquainted with the former; and there was as little stiffness as nasal redness about her.

A fresh start, then,—­and this time accuracy!

Appalled by the loud thump of the stranger’s skull upon the chief river of the State of New York, the lady—­it was a young lady whom Wade had tumbled to avoid—­turned, saw a human being lying motionless, and swept gracefully toward him, like a Good Samaritan, on the outer edge.  It was not her fault, but her destiny, that she had to be graceful even under these tragic circumstances.

“Dead!” she thought.  “Is he dead?”

The appalling thump had cracked the ice, and she could not know how well the skull was cushioned inside with brains to resist a blow.

She shuddered, as she swooped about toward this possible corpse.  It might be that he was killed, and half the fault hers.  No wonder her fine color, shining in the right parts of an admirably drawn face, all disappeared instantly.

But she evidently was not frightened.

She halted, kneeled, looked curiously at the stranger, and then proceeded, in a perfectly cool and self-possessed way, to pick him up.

A solid fellow, heavy to lift in his present lumpish condition of dead-weight!  She had to tug mightily to get him up into a sitting position.  When he was raised, all the backbone seemed gone from his spine, and it took the whole force of her vigorous arms to sustain him.

The effort was enough to account for the return of her color.  It came rushing back splendidly.  Cheeks, forehead, everything but nose, blushed.  The hard work of lifting so much avoirdupois, and possibly, also, the novelty of supporting so much handsome fellow, intensified all her hues.  Her eyes—­blue, or that shade even more faithful than blue—­deepened; and her pale golden hair grew several carats—­not carrots—­brighter.