.

The lover was greatly relieved. He could now forewarn the lady against
the peril he had imagined. The train in a moment dropped him at
Dunderbunk. He hurried to the Foundry and wrote a note to Mrs. Damer.

"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.

This point settled, she took her skates, put on her pretty Amazonian hat
with its alert feather, and went down to waste her beauty and grace on
the ice, unattended and alone.

CHAPTER XI.

CAP'S AMBUSTER'S SKIFF.

It was a busy afternoon at the Dunderbunk Foundry.

The Superintendent had come back with his pocket full of orders.
Everybody, from the Czar of Russia to the President of the Guano
Republic, was in the market for machinery. Cris