Miss Damer certainly was a woman of a grander order. You might pull at the bells or knock at the knockers and be introduced into the boudoirs of all the houses, villas, seats, chateaus, and palaces in Christendom without seeing such another. She belonged distinctly to the Northern races,--the "brave and true and tender" women. There was, indeed, a trace of hauteur and imperiousness in her look and manner; but it did not ill become her distinguished figure and face. Wade, however, remembered her sweet earnestness when she was playing leech to his wound, and chose to take that mood as her dominant one. "She must have been desperately annoyed with bores and boobies," he thought. "I do not wonder she protects herself by distance. I am afraid I shall never get within her lines again,--not even if I should try slow and regular approaches, and bombard her with bouquets for a twelvemonth." "But, Wade," says Peter, "all this time you have not told us what good luck sends you here to be wrecked on the hospitable shores of my Point." "I live here. I am chief cook and confectioner where you see the smoking top of that tall chimney up-stream." "Why, of course! What a dolt I was, not to think of you, when Churm told us an Athlete, a Brave, a Sage, and a Gentleman was the Superintendent of Dunderbunk; but said we must find his name out for ourselves. You remember, Mary. Miss Damer is Mr. Churm's ward." She acknowledged with a cool bow that she did remember her guardian's character of Wade. "You do not say, Peter," says Mrs. Skerrett, with a bright little look at the other lady, "why Mr. Churm was so mysterious about Mr. Wade." "Miss Damer shall tell us," Peter rejoined, repeating his wife's look of merry significance. She looked somewhat teased. Wade could divine easily the meaning of this little mischievous talk. His friend Churm had no doubt puffed him furiously. "All this time," said Miss Darner, evading a reply, "we are neglecting our skating privileges." "Peter and I have a few grains of humanity in our souls," Fanny said. "We should blush to sail away from Mr. Wade, while he carries the quarantine flag at his pale cheeks." "I am almost ruddy again," says Wade. "Your potion, Miss Damer, has completed the work of your surgery. I can afford to dismiss my lamp-post." "Whereupon the post changes to a tee-totum," Peter said, and spun off in an eccentric, ending in a tumble. "I must have a share in your restoration, Mr. Wade," Fanny claimed. "I see you need a second dose of medicine. Hand me the flask, Mary. What shall I pour from this magic bottle? juice of Rhine, blood of Burgundy, fire of Spain, bubble of Rheims, beeswing of Oporto, honey of Cyprus, nectar, or whiskey? Whiskey is vulgar, but the proper thing, on the whole, for these occasions. I prescribe it." And she gave him another little draught to imbibe.