LOVE IN THE FIRST DEGREE.
Peter Skerrett came sailing round the purple rocks of his Point, skating like a man who has been in the South of Europe for two winters.
He was decidedly Anglicized in his whiskers, coat, and shoes. Otherwise he in all respects repeated his well-known ancestor, Skerrett of the Revolution; whose two portraits—1. A ruddy hero in regimentals, in Gilbert Stuart's early brandy-and-water manner; 2. A rosy sage in senatorials, in Stuart's later claret-and-water manner—hang in his descendant's dining-room.
Peter's first look was a provokingly significant one at the confused and blushing young lady. Secondly he inspected the Dying Gladiator on the ice.
"Have you been tilting at this gentleman, Mary?" he asked, in the voice of a cheerful, friendly fellow. "Why! Hullo. Hooray! It's Wade, Richard Wade, Dick Wade! Don't look, Miss Mary, while I give him the grips of all the secret societies we belonged to in College."
Mary, however, did look on, pleased and amused, while Peter plumped down on the ice, shook his friend's hand, and examined him as if he were fine crockery, spilt and perhaps shattered.
"It's not a case of trepanning, Dick, my boy?" said he.
"No," said the other. "I tumbled in trying to dodge this lady. The ice thought my face ought to be scratched, because I had been scratching its face without mercy. My wits were knocked out of me; but they are tired of secession, and pleading to be let in again."
"Keep some of them out for our sake! We must have you at our commonplace level. Well, Miss Mary, I suppose this is the first time you have had the sensation of breaking a man's head. You generally hit lower." Peter tapped his heart.
"I'm all right now, thanks to my surgeon," says Wade. "Give me a lift,
Peter." He pulled up and clung to his friend.