of a moustache. The widow now perceived, with mild regret, how much she
had missed when she married "a man all shaven and shorn." Her cheek, still
fair, though forty, flushed with novel delight, and she appreciated her
lodger more than ever.

Wade's salutation to Belle Purtett was more distant. There must be a
little friendly reserve between a handsome young man and a pretty young
woman several grades lower in the social scale, living in the same house.
They were on the most cordial terms, however; and her gift--of course
embroidered slippers--and his to her--of course "The Illustrated Poets,"
in Turkey morocco--were exchanged with tender good-will on both sides.

"We shall meet on the ice, Miss Belle," said Wade. "It is a day of a
thousand for skating."

"Mr. Ringdove says you are a famous skater," Belle rejoined. "He saw you
on the river yesterday evening."

"Yes; Tarbox and I were practising to exhibit to-day; but I could not do
much with my dull old skates."

Wade breakfasted deliberately, as a holiday morning allowed, and then
walked down to the Foundry. There would be no work done to-day, except by
a small gang keeping up the fires. The Superintendent wished only to give
his First Semi-Annual Report an hour's polishing, before he joined all
Dunderbunk on the ice.

It was a halcyon day, worthy of its motto, "Peace on earth, good-will to
men." The air was electric, the sun overflowing with jolly shine, the
river smooth and sheeny from the hither bank to the snowy mountains