An' by moonlight, too--but say, is there a moon? Why, I presume there
ought to be," said Miss Martin.

"'Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?'" quoted Dove,
examining a tiny pocket-calendar.

"Oh gee, that's fine!" repeated Miss Martin, on hearing his answer.
"Say, we must dance a FRANCAISE. Mr. Guest, you an' I'll be partners, I
surmise," and ceasing to waltz and pirouette with James, she took a
long sweep, then stood steady, and let her skates bear her out to the
middle of the pond. Her skirts clung close in front, and swept out
behind her lithe figure, until it was lost in the crowd.

"Don't you wish YOU could skate like that?" asked the sharp-tongued
little student, called Dickensey, who was standing beside Madeleine.
Madeleine, who held him in contempt because his trousers were baggy at
the knees, and because he had once appeared at a ball in white cotton
gloves, answered with asperity that there were other things in life
besides skating. She had no further chance of speaking to Maurice in
private, so postponed telling her news till the following evening.

Shortly after eight o'clock, the next night, a noisy party whistled and
hallooed in the street below Maurice's window. He was the last to join,
and then some ten or eleven of them picked their steps along the
hard-frozen ruts of the SCHLEUSSIGER WEG, a road that followed the
river to the outskirts of the town. Just above the GERMANIABAD, a rough
scat had been erected on the ice, for the convenience of skaters. They
were the first to make use of it; the snow before it was untrodden; and
the Pleisse wound white and solitary between its banks of snow.

They set off in a higgledy-piggledy fashion, each striking out for
himself. When, however, they had passed the narrower windings, gone
under the iron bridge which was low enough to catch the unwary by the
forehead, and when the full breadth of the river was before them, they
took hands, and, forming a long line, skated in time to the songs some
one struck up, and in which all joined: THE ROSE OF SHARON, JINGLE
BELLS, THERE IS A TAVERN IN OUR TOWN. As they advanced to the corners
where the big trees trailed their naked branches on the ice, just as in
summer they sank their leaves in the water, Miss Jensen, who, despite
her proportions, was a surprisingly good skater, sent her big voice
over the snow-bound stillness in an aria from the PROPHET; and after
this, Miss Martin, no; to be done, struck up the p