“Guess!”

“I’m so dull,” said she, looking bright as a diamond.  “Let me think!  B.P.?  British Poets, perhaps.”

“Try nearer home!”

“What are you likely to be thinking of that begins with B.P.?—­Oh, I know!  Boiler Plates!”

She looked at him,—­innocent as a lamb.  Bill looked at her, delighted with her little coquetry.  A woman without coquetry is insipid as a rose without scent, as Champagne without bubbles, or as corned beef without mustard.

“It’s something I’m thinking of most of the time,” says he; “but I hope it’s softer than Boiler Plates.  B.P. stands for Miss Isabella Purtett.”

“Oh!” says Belle, and she skated on in silence.

“You came down with Alonzo Ringdove?” Bill asked, suddenly, aware of another pang after a moment of peace.

“He came with me and his sisters,” she replied.

Yes; poor Ringdove had dressed himself in his shiniest black, put on his brightest patent-leather boots, with his new swan-necked skates newly strapped over them, and wore his new dove-colored overcoat with the long skirts, on purpose to be lovely in the eyes of Belle on this occasion.  Alas, in vain!

“Mr. Ringdove is a great friend of yours, isn’t he?”

“If you ever came to see me now, you would know who my friends are, Mr. Tarbox.”

“Would you be my friend again, if I came, Miss Belle?”

“Again?  I have always been so,—­always, Bill.”

“Well, then, something more than my friend,—­now that I am trying to be worthy of more, Belle?”

“What more can I be?” she said, softly.

“My wife.”

She curved to the right.  He followed.  To the left.  He was not to be shaken off.

“Will you promise me not to say walves instead of valves, Bill?” she said, looking pretty and saucy as could be.  “I know, to say W for V is fashionable in the iron business; but I don’t like it.”

“What a thing a woman is to dodge!” says Bill.  “Suppose I told you that men brought up inside of boilers, hammering on the inside against twenty hammering like Wulcans on the outside, get their ears so dumfounded that they can’t tell whether they are saying valves or walves, wice or virtue,—­suppose I told you that,—­what would you say, Belle?”

“Perhaps I’d say that you pronounce virtue so well, and act it so sincerely, that I can’t make any objection to your other words.  If you’d asked me to be your vife, Bill, I might have said I didn’t understand; but wife I do understand, and I say”—­

She nodded, and tried to skate off.  Bill stuck close to her side.

“Is this true, Belle?” he said, almost doubtfully.

“True as truth!”