Indeed the air was so fresh and exhilarating that Dora and Katie forgot their dignity as the two eldest daughters, and begging Giles and Olive to "mind Phil" for a few minutes—Lottie was considered old enough to take care of herself—started off for a race. Now, though there was a difference of two years in their ages, there was very little difference in their height; it was not surprising, therefore, that the younger girl was the victor. But, after all, it was a closely-contested point, and panting and laughing, with rosy-cheeks and sparkling eyes, they came back to their charges.
"Couldn't we go as far as the lake?" asked Giles. "I shouldn't wonder if there's skating going on, and I'd like to see it."
The lake was exactly opposite that part of the Park nearest Madeira Street, but as they were already half way across the large open piece of pleasure-ground, it was decided they could easily go to the water and be home by dinner-time. Giles was right; there were some skaters on the ice, but they were all near one spot, and too far off to be plainly seen, for Dora said they would not have time to go farther than the iron bridge that spans the lake at its narrowest point.
"Why," said Katie, as she stood there straining her eyes to see the skaters, "there's somebody just like Robert. There! Don't you see that boy who has just fallen down?"
But Dora was a little bit short-sighted.
"Nonsense," she said, "it couldn't be Robert. He wouldn't go against father's wishes so much as that."
Mr. Grainger's only brother had met his death from an accident on the ice. It had happened years ago end before he himself had married, but as long as he lived, he would never forget the fearful shock of seeing the dead body brought into the house. From that day he had a horror of skating, and he made it a command that not one of his children should learn the art. And Katie, remembering her father's well-known and solemnly impressed desire, thought she must have been mistaken, and dismissed the subject from her mind.
Perhaps she would have thought of it on her return home, and told her mother of the strange resemblance between Robert and the skater she had seen in the distance, but as soon as she got in, a note was given her, and, for a while, the contents banished everything else from her memory. It was an invitation from Connie Pafford to an evening party at her house.
"Oh! Mother, may I go?" she asked, breathlessly, when she had read the note aloud.
"You think it will give you pleasure?"