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.  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 check.

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.”

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

“But he seems to be such a fine fellow,—­suppose she shouldn’t”——­

The pretty face looked anxious.

“Suppose he shouldn’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!”