He leaves us, and Harriet and I fall to criticizing the performers again. After all, I think the beginners amuse me most, more especially _now_, when I can "deeply sympathize" with their terrors. The way they stumble against each other, their frequent falls, their earnest faces--earnest as though it were a matter of life and death in which they are engaged--all combine to excite my risible faculties to the last degree. I laugh merrily and heartily, my color rises, I clap my hands with glee as two fat men, coming into collision, fall prostrate almost at my feet. "How you enjoy everything!" says Harriet, patting me on the shoulder, and laughing herself through sympathy. "It is all so new to me," I return, with delight; and, glancing up at her, I also catch Sir James's eyes fixed upon me, filled with pleasant amusement. There are little boys with spindle legs who look all boots and no body; little boy-rinkers and little girl-rinkers, who do their work so beautifully and show such unlimited _go_ as puts their elders to shame. Sir Mark comes back again, and again I am persuaded to rise and court fortune. In my turn I scramble and totter and push and try to believe I am enjoying the moment. At length I break into a little slide--insensibly, as it seems--and after that matters go more smoothly. "Ah! now you are getting into the way of it," exclaims Sir Mark, almost growing excited over my progress. "Just keep on like that, and soon you will master, it." Half an hour elapses. The others of our party, who have been at it longer than I have, and to whom it is a novelty, have tired of skating, and stand once more together in a group. As I approach them, attended by Sir Mark, I pause to utter a few words. "It is lovely, delicious. I am getting on capitally. I shall do it perfectly in no time," I gasp, conceitedly; and, instantly slipping, I fall forward helplessly into my companion's arms. I get a severe shock, but think myself lucky in that I have escaped the ground. Sir Mark holds me a shade longer, and perhaps a shade more tenderly, than the occasion requires; and, looking up, I catch Blanche Going's eyes, and can see that she wears upon her handsome face a smile, half insolent, wholly suspicious. The others must see it, too. Extreme anger grows within my breast. Disengaging myself from Sir Mark's support, I stand alone, though insecure, and feel that I am rapidly becoming the color of a rich and full-blown peony. Certainly my bitterest enemy could not accuse me of blushing prettily; and this knowledge, added to what I am already smarting under, renders ma furious. I repent my first move. I regret having so far given in to popular opinion as to withdraw myself from Sir Mark's sustaining arm. Hastily turning to him again--unmindful of Harriet's kind little speech--I hold out to him my hand, and address him with unwonted _empressement_.