Healthy love-stories always end in happy marriages.

So ends this story, begun as to its love portion by the little romance
of a tumble, and continued by the bigger romance of a rescue.

Of course there were incidents enough to fill a volume, obstacles enough
to fill a volume, and development of character enough to fill a tome
thick as "Webster's Unabridged," before the happy end of the beginning
of the Wade-Damer joint history.

But we can safely take for granted that the lover being true and manly,
and the lady true and womanly, and both possessed of the high moral
qualities necessary to artistic skating, they will go on understanding
each other better, until they are as one as two can be.

Masculine reader, attend to the moral of this tale:--

Skate well, be a hero, bravely deserve the fair, prove your deserts by
your deeds, find your "perfect woman nobly planned to warm, to comfort,
and command," catch her when found, and you are Blest.

Reader of the gentler sex, likewise attend:--

All the essential blessings of life accompany a true heart and a good
complexion. Skate vigorously; then your heart will beat true, your
cheeks will bloom, your appointed lover will see your beautiful soul
shining through your beautiful face, he will tell you so, and after
sufficient circumlocution he will Pop, you will accept, and your lives
will glide sweetly as skating on virgin ice to silver music.

* * * * *

MIDWINTER.

The speckled sky is dim with snow,
The light flakes falter and fall slow;
Athwart the hill-top, rapt and pale,
Silently drops a silvery veil;
The far-off mountain's misty form
Is entering now a tent of storm;
And all the valley is shut in
By flickering curtains gray and thin.

But cheerily the chickadee
Singeth to me on fence and tree;
The snow sails round him, as he sings,
White as the down of angels' wings.

I watch the slow flakes, as they fall
On bank and brier and broken wall;
Over the orchard, waste and brown,
All noiselessly they settle down,
Tipping the apple-boughs, and each
Light quivering twig of plum and peach.

On turf and curb and bower-roof
The snow-storm spreads its ivory woof;
It paves with pearl the garden-walk;
And lovingly round tattered stalk
And shivering stem its magic weaves
A mantle fair as lily-leaves.

The hooded beehive, small and low,
Stands like a maiden in the snow;
A