Of course,
you do not attach much value to his present pursuit. You see no utility
in it.

_Mr. MacBorrowdale._ On the contrary, I see great utility in it. I am
for a healthy mind in a healthy body: the first can scarcely be without
the last, and the last can scarcely be without good exercise in pure
air. In this way, there is nothing better than skating. I should be very
glad to cut eights and nines with his lordship: but the only figure I
should tut would be that of as many feet as would measure my own length
on the ice.

Lord Curryfin, on his return to land, thought it his duty first to
accost Miss Gryll, who was looking on by the side of Miss Ilex.

He asked her if she ever skated. She answered in the
negative. 'I have tried it,' she said, 'but unsuccessfully. I admire it
extremely, and regret my inability to participate in it.' He then went
up to Miss Niphet, and asked her the same question. She answered: 'I
have skated often in our grounds at home.' 'Then why not now?' he asked.
She answered: 'I have never done it before so many witnesses.' 'But
what is the objection?' he asked. 'None that I know of,' she answered.
'Then,' he said, 'as I have done or left undone some things to please
you, will you do this one thing to please me?'

1 (Greek phrase)--PIND. Olymp. ix.
With what a clamour he passed through the circle.

'Certainly,' she replied: adding to herself: 'I will do anything in my
power to please you.'

[Illustration: She was an Atalanta on ice as on turf 191-161]

She equipped herself expeditiously, and started before he was well
aware. She was half round the lake before he came up with her. She then
took a second start, and completed the circle before he came up with
her again. He saw that she was an Atalanta on ice as on turf. He placed
himself by her side, slipped her arm through his, and they started
together on a second round, which they completed arm-in-arm. By this
time the blush-rose bloom which had so charmed him on a former occasion
again mantled on her cheeks, though from a different cause, for it
was now only the glow of healthful exercise; but he could not help
exclaiming, 'I now see why and with what tints the Athenians coloured
their statues.'

'Is it clear,' she asked, 'that they did so?'

'I have doubted it before,' he answered, 'but I am now certain that they
did.'

In the meantime, Miss Gryll, Miss Ilex, and the Reverend Doctor Opimian
had been watching th