man race is
based. Man is the crowning work of God on earth; but though so nobly
endowed, we must not forget that we are the lofty children of a race
whose lowest forms lie prostrate within the water, having no higher
aspiration than the desire for food; and we cannot understand the
possible degradation and moral wretchedness of Man, without knowing that
his physical nature is rooted in all the material characteristics that
belong to his type and link him even with the Fish. The moral and
intellectual gifts that distinguish him from them are his to use or to
abuse; he may, if he will, abjure his better nature and be _Vertebrate_
more than Man. He may sink as low as the lowest of his type, or he may
rise to a spiritual height that will make that which distinguishes him
from the rest far more the controlling element of his being than that
which unites him with them.

LOVE AND SKATES.

IN TWO PARTS.

PART II.

CHAPTER VII.

WADE DOWN!

The hugging of Wade by the happy pair had to be done metaphorically,
since it was done in the sight of all Dunderbunk.

He had divined a happy result, when he missed Bill Tarbox from the
arena, and saw him a furlong away, hand in hand with his reconciled
sweetheart.

"I envy you, Bill," said he, "almost too much to put proper fervor into
my congratulations."

"Your time will come," the foreman rejoined.

And says Belle, "I am sure there is a lady skating somewhere, and only
waiting for you to follow her."

"I don't see her," Wade replied, looking with a mock-grave face up
and down and athwart the river. "When you've all gone to dinner, I'll
prospect ten miles up and down and try to find a good matrimonial claim
that's not taken."

"You will not come up to dinner?" Belle asked.

"I can hardly afford to make two bites of a holiday," said Wade. "I've
sent Perry up for a luncheon. Here he comes with it. So I cede my
quarter of your pie, Miss Belle, to a better fellow."

"Oh!" cries Perry, coming up and bowing elaborately. "Mr. and Mrs.
Tarbox, I believe. Ah, yes! Well, I will mention it up at Albany. I am
going to take my Guards up to call on the Governor."

Perry dashed off, followed by a score of Dunderbunk boys, organized by
him as the Purtett Guards, and taught to salute him as Generalissimo
with military honors.

So many hundreds of turkeys, done to a turn, now began to have an effect
upon the atmosphere. Few odors are more subtile and pervading than this,