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t not stop here and be spooney. Such a halcyon day I may not have again in all my life, and I ought to make the best of it, with my New Skates." So he dashed off, and filled the little cove above the Point with a labyrinth of curves and flourishes. When that bit of crystal tablet was well covered, the podographer sighed for a new sheet to inscribe his intricate rubricas upon. Why not write more stanzas of the poetry of motion on the ice below the Point? Why not? Braced by his lunch on the brown fibre of good Mrs. Purtett's cold drumstick and thigh, Wade was now in fine trim. The air was more glittering and electric than ever. It was triumph and victory and paean in action to go flashing along over this footing, smoother than polished marble and sheenier than first-water gems. Wade felt the high exhilaration of pure blood galloping through a body alive from top to toe. The rhythm of his movement was like music to him. The Point ended in a sharp promontory. Just before he came abreast of it, Wade under mighty headway flung into his favorite corkscrew spiral on one foot, and went whirling dizzily along, round and round, in a straight line. At the dizziest moment, he was suddenly aware of a figure, also turning the Point at full speed, and rushing to a collision. He jerked aside to avoid it. He could not look to his footing. His skate struck a broken oar, imbedded in the ice. He fell violently, and lay like a dead man. His New Skates, Testimonial of Merit, seem to have served him a shabby trick. CHAPTER VIII. TETE-A-TETE. Seeing Wade lie there motionless, the lady---- Took off her spectacles, blew her great red nose, and stiffly drew near. Spectacles! Nose! No,--the latter feature of hers had never become acquainted with the former; and there was as little stiffness as nasal redness about her. A fresh start, then,--and this time accuracy! Appalled by the loud thump of the stranger's skull upon the chief river of the State of New York, the lady--it was a young lady whom Wade had tumbled to avoid--turned, saw a human being lying motionless, and swept gracefully toward him, like a Good Samaritan, on the outer edge. It was not her fault, but her destiny, that she had to be graceful even under these tragic circumstances. "Dead!" she thought. "Is he dead?" The appalling thump had cracked the ice, and she could not know how well the skull was cushioned inside with brains to resist a blow
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