shilling for an hour of your time."

"Indeed I will," said the boy; "but let me first go tell Jim Bates,
there, who maybe will be returning to Paulus Hook, and I'll just bid him
wait for me over yonder in the tan-yard until you gentlefolks have had
your game."

Off darted the new recruit, and was seen to join a man wearing the wide
hat and somewhat greasy garb of a fisherman, who, after a few words,
nodded assent, and with somewhat slouching gait proceeded leisurely
across the bridge in the direction of the tan-yard referred to. Amid
much laughter the game began; some other acquaintances came down the
bank and joined them, and presently Betty found herself darting over the
ice hither and thither, following Peter's purposely erratic course, and
pursuing the ball, determined this time to outdo Yorke, who followed her
every motion, and whom she again began to tease and laugh at. But to
Yorke anything was better than her scorn or displeasure, and when, by a
lucky stroke and a quick turn of her skates, Betty bent down and
captured the elusive ball, he was the first to raise a shout of
triumph, in which the merry party joined with the heartiness of
good-fellowship and breeding.

It was growing dark and cold as Betty climbed up the bank and seated
herself on a pile of boards, while Peter unstrapped her skates. As she
looked up, she saw Yorke and Philip Livingston talking with the boy who
had been hurlie for Kitty, and it crossed her mind to wonder where Kitty
had vanished. So she rose to her feet and walked leisurely along with
Peter toward the tan-yard and turned the corner of the furnace chimney.
As she did so, she almost stumbled against a man, who drew back
suddenly; on the other side stood Kitty, and Betty distinctly saw a