the belief that at any rate there would be no
witness to her voyage of discovery. But a renewed yelling among the men
made her lift her head, and there, striding swiftly over the crisp snow,
came a tall, handsome young man, with a pointed, silky black beard and
fine, short-sighted black eyes, aglow with the pleasure of the frosty
sun.

It was Ian Stewart. The young lady whom he discovered to be Miss Flaxman
just as he reached the chairs, was much more annoyed than he at the
encounter. Here was an acquaintance, it seemed, and one provided with
the bag and orange which Tims had warned her was the mark of the
serious skater. They exchanged remarks on the weather and she went on
lacing her other boot in great trepidation. The moment was come. She did
not recoil from the insult of being seized under her elbows by two men
and carefully planted on her feet as though she were most likely to
tumble down. So far as she knew, she was likely to. But, lo! no sooner
was she up than muscles and nerves, recking nothing of the brain's blind
denial, asserted their own acquaintance with the art of balance and
motion. Wondering, and for a few minutes still apprehensive, but
presently lost in the pleasure of the thing, Mildred began to fly over
the ice. And the dark, handsome man who had taken off his cap to her
became supremely unimportant. Unluckily the piece of flood-ice was not
endless and she had to come back. He was circling around an orange, and
she, throwing herself instinctively on to the outside edge, came down
towards him in great, sweeping curves, absorbed in the delight of this
motion, so new yet so perfectly under her control. Ian Stewart,
perceiving that the girl was absolutely unconscious of his presence,
blushed in his soul to think that he had been induced to believe himself
to be of importance in her eyes.

"Miss Flaxman," he said, skating up to her, "I see you have no orange.
Can't we skate a figure together around mine?"

"I've forgotten all about figures," replied Mildred, with truth.

"Try some simple turns," he urged. "There are plenty here," and he held
up a book in his hand like the one she had found in her own black bag.
But it had "Ian Stewart, Durham College," written clearly on the
outside.

"So that's Stewart!" thought Milly; and she could not help laughing at
her own thoughts, which had created him in a different image.

Stewart did not know why she laughed, but he found the sound and sight
of the lau