“That is a charming idea,” said John, “one might make a good subject of it.”

“It is a little old, perhaps.  I think I have heard it before—­have not you?”

“All good ideas are old.  The older the better,” said John confidently.  Mrs. Goddard could not resist the temptation of teazing him a little.  They had grown very intimate in forty-eight hours; it had taken six months for Mr. Juxon to reach the point John had won in two days.

“Are they?” she asked quietly.  “Is that the reason you selected me for the ‘idea’ of your ode, which you explained to me?”

“You?” said John in astonishment.  Then he laughed.  “Why, you are not any older than I am!”

“Do you think so?” she inquired with a demure smile.  “I am very much older than you think.”

“You must be—­I mean, you know, you must be older than you look.”

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Goddard, still smiling, and just resting the tips of her fingers upon his arm as she stepped across a slippery place in the frozen road.  “Yes, I am a great deal older than you.”

John would have liked very much to ask her age, but even to his youthful and unsophisticated mind such a question seemed almost too personal.  He did not really believe that she was more than five years older than he, and that seemed to be no difference at all.

“I don’t know,” he said.  “I am nearly one and twenty.”

“Yes, I know,” said Mrs. Goddard, who had heard every detail concerning John from Mr. Ambrose, again and again.  “Just think,” she added with a laugh, “only one and twenty!  Why when I was one and twenty I was—­” she stopped short.

“What were you doing then?” asked John, trying not to seem too curious.

“I was living in London,” she said quietly.  She half enjoyed his disappointment.

“Yes,” he said, “I daresay.  But what—­well, I suppose I ought not to ask any questions.”

“Certainly not,” said she.  “It is very rude to ask a lady questions about her age.”

“I do not mean to be rude again,” said John, pretending to laugh.  “Have you always been fond of skating?” he asked, fixing his eye upon a distant tree, and trying to look unconscious.

“No—­I only learned since I came here.  Besides, I skate very badly.”

“Did Mr. Juxon teach you?” asked John, still gazing into the distance.  From not looking at the path he slipped on a frozen puddle and nearly fell.  Whereat, as usual, when he did anything awkward, he blushed to the brim of his hat.

“Take care,” said Mrs. Goddard, calmly.  “You will fall if you don’t look where you are going.  No; Mr. Juxon was not here last year.  He only came here in the summer.”

“It seems to me that he has always been here,” said John, trying to recover his equanimity.  “Then I suppose Mr. Ambrose taught you to skate?”

“Exactly—­Mr. Ambrose taught me.  He skates very well.”

“So will you, with a little more practice,” answered her companion in a rather patronising tone.  He intended perhaps to convey the idea that Mrs. Goddard would improve in the exercise if she would actually skate, and with him, instead of submitting to be pushed about in a chair by Mr. Juxon.