get ready.

When they were left alone a terrible doubt assailed Mabel, and she asked
Kittie if she was going to ask George again to marry her. Kittie
blushed and said she was not, of course, and that she knew better now.
For it is indeed true that the human heart is not so easily turned from
its dear object. We know that if once one truly loves it lasts forever
and ever and ever, and then one dies and is buried with things the loved
one wore.

Kittie said she had a plan to help George, and all Mabel had to do was
to watch and keep on breathing. Mabel felt better then, and said she
guessed she could do that. George came back all ready, and they started
off. Kittie acted rather dark and mysterious, but Mabel conversed with
George in the easy and pleasant fashion young men love. She told him all
about school and how bad she was in mathematics; and he said he had been
a duffer at it too, but that he had learned to shun it while there was
yet time. And he advised her very earnestly to have nothing to do with
it. Mabel didn't, either, after she came back to St. Catharine's; and
when Sister Irmingarde reproached her, Mabel said she was leaning on the
judgment of a strong man, as woman should do. But Sister Irmingarde made
her go on with the arithmetic just the same.

By and by they came to the river, and it was so early not many people
were skating there. When George had fastened on their skates--he did it
in the nicest way, exactly as if they were grown up--Kittie looked more
mysterious than ever, and she started off as fast as she could skate
toward a little inlet where there was no one at all. George and Mabel
followed her. George said he didn't know whether the ice was smooth in
there, but Kittie kept right on, and George did not say any more. I