t and most ungraceful skater on the Broad. All
the same, he never fell, and he went faster than even Edgar in his
perfection of manly elegance.

Edgar had watched the whole of this little scene between Leam and
Alick while seeming to be occupied only in executing his spread eagles
and outside curves to perfection, and it was no secret to him what
it meant. The demon of masculine vanity, never far off where a pretty
woman was concerned, entered and took possession of him. He would
succeed where Alick Corfield had failed, and Leam, who refused her old
friend, should gratify her new. He had been guiding Adelaide over the
ice, but she was rather too stiff in her movements, not sufficiently
pliant nor yielding to be a very pleasant skating companion. And he
had been pushing Josephine along the slide, but Joseph was too stout
and short-breathed to be an ideal convoy; also he had been racing and
half romping with the Fairbairn girls, who slipped and tumbled and
laughed and screamed--more hoydenish than he thought pleasing; but
now he intended to reward himself with Leam, whose action he was sure
would be all that was delightful, even though unaccustomed, and who
would look so well on his arm. Her slight and supple figure against
his breadth and height and sense of solidity and strength, her dark
hair and his beard of tawny brown, her large dark eyes and his of true
Saxon blue, her southern face, oval in shape, cream-colored in tint,
and his, square, open, ruddy, Scandinavian,--yes, they would make
a splendid pair by their very contrast; and Edgar, narrowing his
ambition to his circumstances, was quietly resolved to win the day
over Alick Corfield by inducing Leam to cross the Broad with him
after she had so manifestly refused her old friend. It was but a small
object of ambition, but we must do what we can, thought Edgar; and
it is the best wisdom to content ourselves with mice when we have no
lions to destroy. He did not, however, rush up to her with Alick's
tactless precipitancy. He waited just long enough for her to desire,
and not so long as to disappoint; then, speaking to Adelaide by the
way, and giving her and Josephine each a helping hand, he came in
a series of clean, showy curves to where Leam and her father were
standing.

Leam was glad to meet again this handsome man who had seen so much and
who talked so well. He was something different from the rest, and
so far superior to them all. But, not being one of those