The Point was a favorite spot of Wade's. Many a twilight of last summer, tired with his fagging at the Works to make good the evil of Whiffler's rule, he had lain there on the rocks under the hemlocks, breathing the spicy methyl they poured into the air. After his day's hard fight, in the dust and heat of the Foundry, with anarchy and unthrift, he used to take the quiet restoratives of Nature, until the murmur and fragrance of the woods, the cool wind, and the soothing loiter of the shining stream had purged him from the fevers of his task. To this old haunt he skated, and kindling a little fire, as an old campaigner loves to do, he sat down and lunched heartily on Mrs. Purtett's cold leg,--cannibal thought!--on the cold leg of Mrs. Purtett's yesterday's turkey. Then lighting his weed,--dear ally of the lonely,--the Superintendent began to think of his foreman's bliss, and to long for something similar on his own plane. "I hope the wish is father to its fulfilment," he said. "But I must not stop here and be spooney. Such a halcyon day I may not have again in all my life, and I ought to make the best of it, with my New Skates." So he dashed off, and filled the little cove above the Point with a labyrinth of curves and flourishes. When that bit of crystal tablet was well covered, the podographer sighed for a new sheet to inscribe his intricate rubricas upon. Why not write more stanzas of the poetry of motion on the ice below the Point? Why not? Braced by his lunch on the brown fibre of good Mrs. Purtett's cold drumstick and thigh, Wade was now in fine trim. The air was more glittering and electric than ever. It was triumph and victory and paean in action to go flashing along over this footing, smoother than polished marble and sheenier than first-water gems. Wade felt the high exhilaration of pure blood galloping through a body alive from top to toe. The rhythm of his movement was like music to him. The Point ended in a sharp promontory. Just before he came abreast of it, Wade under mighty headway flung into his favorite corkscrew spiral on one foot, and went whirling dizzily along, round and round, in a straight line. At the dizziest moment, he was suddenly aware of a figure, also turning the Point at full speed, and rushing to a collision. He jerked aside to avoid it. He could not look to his footing. His skate struck a broken oar, imbedded in the ice. He fell violently, and lay like a dead man. His New Skates, Testimonial of Merit, seem to have served him a shabby trick. CHAPTER VIII. TÊTE-À-TÊTE. Seeing Wade lie there motionless, the lady---- Took off her spectacles, blew her great red nose, and stiffly drew near. Spectacles! Nose! No,--the latter feature of hers had never become acquainted with the former; and there was as little stiffness as nasal redness about her. A fresh start, then,--and this time accuracy!