She had strapped on a pair of skates—­clumsy homemade things, and a birthday present from Johnny Whitelamb, who had fashioned them with pains, the Epworth blacksmith helping.  Hetty skated excellently well—­in days, be it understood, before the cutting of figures had been advanced to an art with rules and text-books.  But as the poise and balanced impetus came natural to her, so in idle moments and casually she had struck out figures of her own, and she practised them now with the red-breast for spectator.  She was happy—­her bosom’s lord sitting lightly on his throne—­and all because of two letters she pulled from her pocket and re-read in the pauses of her skating.

The first was from her mother at Wroote, and told her that to-day or to-morrow her father would be arriving at Kelstein with her sister Patty.  Hetty had been expecting this for some weeks.  At Christmas (it was now mid-January) the Granthams had written praising her, and this had given Mr. Wesley the notion of proffering yet another of his daughters.  Two days after receiving the letter he had ridden over to Kelstein with the proposal.  Patty was the one chosen (Hetty could guess why), and poor Patty knew nothing of it at the time:  but Mrs. Grantham had accepted almost effusively, and she was to come.  In what capacity?  Hetty wondered.  She herself taught the children, and she could think of no other post in the household not absolutely menial.  Was it selfish of her to be so glad?  For one thing Patty had fewer whimsies than the rest of her sisters and, likely enough, would accept her lot as a matter of course.  She seldom wept or grumbled:  indeed Hetty, before now, had found her patience irritating.  But to have Patty’s company now seemed the most delightful thing in the world; to fling her arms around somebody who came from home!

The most delightful?  Hetty turned to the second letter—­and with that looked up swiftly as her ear caught the ringing sound of skates, and a young man descended, as it were, out of the sun’s disc and came flying down the long alley on its ray.  She put out both hands.  He swooped around her in a long curve and caught them and kissed her as he came to a standstill, panting, with a flush on each handsome cheek.

“Hetty!”

No answer to this but a sound like a coo of rapture.  He is, as we should think, a personable young fellow, frank, and taking to the eye, though his easy air of mastery provokes another look at Hetty, who is worth ten of him.  But to her he is a young god above whom the stars dance.  Splendid creature though she be, she must comply with her sex which commands her to be passive, to be loved.  With his arm about her she shuts her eyes and drinks delicious weakness; with a sense of sinking through space supported by that arm—­not wholly relying on him as yet, but holding her own strength in reserve, if he should fail her.

“I have raced.”

She laughed.  “I bargained for that.  We have so little time!”