"Ye—yes; oh, yes!" replied Mr. Winkle. "I—I am rather out of practice."
"Oh, do skate, Mr. Winkle!" said Arabella. "I like to see it so much!"
"Oh, it is so graceful!" said another young lady.
A third young lady said it was elegant; and a fourth expressed her opinion that it was "swan-like."
"I should be very happy, I'm sure," said Mr. Winkle, reddening; "but I have no skates."
This objection was at once overruled. Trundle had got a couple of pair, and the fat boy announced that there were half a dozen more down stairs; whereat Mr. Winkle expressed exquisite delight, and looked exquisitely uncomfortable.
See "Reading Club," No. 1, p. 56; No. 2, p. 49; No. 3, pp. 5, 38; No. 4, pp. 94, 67.
NARRATIVE.
1. Tauler the preacher walked, one autumn-day,
Without the walls of Strasburg, by the Rhine,
Pondering the solemn miracle of life;
As one who, wandering in a starless night,
Feels momently the jar of unseen waves,
And hears the thunder of an unknown sea
Breaking along an unimagined shore.