“He has done kinder than he can speak,” says Bill. “He has made a man of me again, Miss Belle.”
“I know it. It makes me very happy to hear you able to say so of yourself.” She spoke gravely.
“Very happy”—about anything that concerned him? Bill had to work off his overjoy at this by an exuberant flourish. He whisked about Belle,—outer edge backward. She stopped to admire. He finished by describing on the virgin ice, before her, the letters B.P., in his neatest style of podography,—easy letters to make, luckily.
“Beautiful!” exclaimed Belle. “What are those letters? Oh! B.P.! What do they stand for?”
“Guess!”
“I’m so dull,” said she, looking bright as a diamond. “Let me think! B.P.? British Poets, perhaps.”
“Try nearer home!”
“What are you likely to be thinking of that begins with B.P.?—Oh, I know! Boiler Plates!”
She looked at him,—innocent as a lamb. Bill looked at her, delighted with her little coquetry. A woman without coquetry is insipid as a rose without scent, as Champagne without bubbles, or as corned beef without mustard.
“It’s something I’m thinking of most of the time,” says he; “but I hope it’s softer than Boiler Plates. B.P. stands for Miss Isabella Purtett.”