"Mr. Wade presents his compliments to Mrs. Damer, and has the honor to inform her that Mr. Skerrett has nominated him carver to the ladies to-day in their host's place.
"Mr. Wade hopes that Miss Damer will excuse him from his engagement to skate with her this afternoon. The ice is dangerous, and Miss Damer should on no account venture upon it."
Perry Purtett was the bearer of this billet. He swaggered into Peter Skerrett's hall, and dreadfully alarmed the fresh-imported Englishman who answered the bell, by ordering him in a severe tone,—
"Hurry up now, White Cravat, with that answer! I'm wanted down to the Works. Steam don't bile when I'm off; and the fly-wheel will never buzz another turn, unless I'm there to motion it to move on."
Mrs. Damer's gracious reply informed Wade "that she should be charmed to see him at dinner, etc., and would not fail to transmit his kind warning to Miss Damer, when she returned from her drive to make calls."
But when Miss Damer returned in the afternoon, her mother was taking a gentle nap over the violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red stripes of a gorgeous Afghan she was knitting. The daughter heard nothing of the billet. The house was lonely without Fanny Skerrett. Mr. Wade did not come at the appointed hour. Mary was not—willing to say to herself how much she regretted his absence.
Had he forgotten the appointment?
No,—that was a thought not to be tolerated.
"A gentleman does not forget," she thought. And she had a thorough confidence, besides, that this gentleman was very willing to remember.
She read a little, fitfully, sang fitfully, moved about the house uneasily; and at last, when it grew late, and she was bored and Wade did not arrive, she pronounced to herself that he had been detained in town.