been a proficient in the art, but he was not
in his youth now, and was so strapped,
and busked, and laced into his various
garments, outer and inner, that he feared
if by mischance he fell it might either be
impossible for him to get up at all, or
something might give way and cause him
to be raised in a limp and unpresentable
condition. Mr. Biscoe had no such qualms,
and was buckling on his skates with all his
characteristic impetuosity—old-fashioned
skates, cumbrous with woodwork, and
with curly tops, very different from the
light and elegant trifles in which handsome
little Mr. Boyd was performing all
sorts of figures before the countess and a
group of ladies gathered together on the
bank, and trying to look as if they were
interested and amused.

"Charmin' scene!" said Lord Hetherington,
surveying the lake in a birdlike
fashion, with his head on one side-
"charmin', quite! Whenever I see ice
and that kind of thing, always reminds
me of some humorous adventures I once
read in a book, 'bout man on the ice, Pick-
winkle, or some such name. 'Commonly
humorous book, to be sure!" and his lordship
laughed very heartily at his reminiscences.

"You mean Pickwick, my lord!" said
the colonel. " Ah! I hope what happened
to him won't happen to any of our party,
specially our fair friends who are pirouetting
away there so prettily. If you recollect
the ice broke and Mr. Pickwick got a
ducking. How's the ice, Boyd?" to the boy,
who came spinning to the edge at the
moment.

"First class, colonel, couldn't be in
better form, it's as hard as nails and as
slippery as— as old boots," said Mr. Boyd,
after hesitating an instant for an appropriate
simile.

"Ah! but just keep up at this end, will
you?" said Mr. Biscoe, looking up, his
face purple with the exertion of pulling at
a refractory strap. "I was past here
yesterday morning and saw that at the other
end the men had broken up the ice for the
deer or the waterfowl, and consequently
what's there is only last night's frost, binding
together the floating bits of yesterday,
and likely to be very rotten!"

"Better have a board with 'Dangerous'
or somethin' of that sort written on it and
stuck up, hadn't we?" suggested Lord
Hetherington, with Serpentine reminiscences.

"Scarcely time to get one prepared, my
lord!" replied Mr. Biscoe, with a slight
smile. "Here, two of you men take a
rope and lay it across the ice just below
that alder tree. That'll warn 'em, and
you, Boyd, tell 'em all to keep above that
line. No good having any bother if one can
prevent it." And Mr. Biscoe hobbled down
the bank and shot away across the lake,
returning in an instant, and showing that
if his skates were old-fashioned, he could
keep pace with any of the young ones
notwithstanding.

"Nice exercise— very!" said the colonel,
who was getting so cold that he was almost
prepared to risk the chance of a tumble and
"have a pair on." "I do like to see a
woman skating; there's something in it
that's—Ah!" And the old colonel
kissed the tips of his fingers, partly to
warm them, partly to express his admiration.
"Now, who is that in the brown
velvet trimmed with fur? She seems to
know all about it."

"That's my sister Caroline," said his
lordship, looking through his double glass.
"Yes, she skates capitally, don't she?
Pretty dress, too; looks like those people
in the pictures outside the polkas, don't it?
Who's—Oh, Mr. Joyce! How d'ye do,
Mr. Joyce? My secretary; very decent
young man that."

The colonel merely coughed behind his
buckskin glove. He did not think much
of secretaries, and shared Jack Cade's
opinion in regard to the professors of the
arts of reading and writing. Just then
Lady Caroline approached the bank.

"Colonel, are you inclined to back the
service in general, and your own regiment
in particular? Mr. Patey and I are going
to have a race. Of course he gives me a
long start. Will you bet?"

"Too delighted to have the chance of
losing," said the colonel, with old-fashioned
gallantry. "And I'll give odds, too—a
dozen pairs to half a dozen. Patey, sustain
the credit of the corps in every particular."

"Depend on me, colonel," said Mr.
Patey, a long-limbed lieutenant of untiring
wind. "Mr. Boyd, take Lady Caroline to
her place, and then start us."

Walter Joyce had heard none of this
colloquy. He had joined Mr. Biscoe, with
whom he had formed a great friendship,
and was showing him how to shift from the
outer edge of an "eight" and shoot off into
a "spread eagle," an intricate movement
requiring all your attention, when he heard
a sharp crack, followed by a loud shout.
Without a word they dashed off to the
other end of the lake where the crowd was