The round little skiff just bore the third person without sinking.

Wade laid Mary Damer against the thwart.  She would not let go her buoy.  He unclasped her stiffened hands.  This friendly touch found its way to her heart.  She opened her eyes and knew him.

“The ice shall not carry off her hat to frighten some mother, down stream,” says Bill Tarbox, catching it.

All these proceedings Cap’n Ambuster’s spy-glass announced to Dunderbunk.

“They’re h’istin’ her up.  They’ve slumped her into the skiff.  They’re puttin’ for shore.  Hooray!”

Pity a spy-glass cannot shoot cheers a mile and a half!

Perry Purtett instantly led a stampede of half Dunderbunk along the railroad-track to learn who it was and all about it.

All about it was, that Miss Damer was safe and not dangerously frozen,—­and that Wade and Tarbox had carried her up the hill to her mother at Peter Skerrett’s.

Missing the heroes in chief, Dunderbunk made a hero of Cap’n Ambuster’s skiff.  It was transported back on the shoulders of the crowd in triumphal procession.  Perry Purtett carried round the hat for a contribution to new paint it, new rib it, new gunwale it, give it new sculls and a new boat-hook,—­indeed, to make a new vessel of the brave little bowl.

“I’m afeard,” says Cap’n Ambuster, “that, when I git a harnsome new skiff, I shall want a harnsome new steamboat, and then the boat will go to cruisin’ round for a harnsome new Cap’n.”

And now for the end of this story.

Healthy love-stories always end in happy marriages.

So ends this story, begun as to its love portion by the little romance of a tumble, and continued by the bigger romance of a rescue.

Of course there were incidents enough to fill a volume, obstacles enough to fill a volume, and development of character enough to fill a tome thick as “Webster’s Unabridged,” before the happy end of the beginning of the Wade-Damer joint history.

But we can safely take for granted that the lover being true and manly, and the lady true and womanly, and both possessed of the high moral qualities necessary to artistic skating, they will go on understanding each other better, until they are as one as two can be.

Masculine reader, attend to the moral of this tale:—­

Skate well, be a hero, bravely deserve the fair, prove your deserts by your deeds, find your “perfect woman nobly planned to warm, to comfort, and command,” catch her when found, and you are Blest.

Reader of the gentler sex, likewise attend:—­

All the essential blessings of life accompany a true heart and a good complexion.  Skate vigorously; then your heart will beat true, your cheeks will bloom, your appointed lover will see your beautiful soul shining through your beautiful face, he will tell you so, and after sufficient circumlocution he will Pop, you will accept, and your lives will glide sweetly as skating on virgin ice to silver music.