guess he did not care much where he went. I suppose it disappoints a man
when he wants to marry a woman and she won't. Now that I am beginning to
study deeply this question of love, many things are clear to me.

Kittie kept far ahead, and all of a sudden Mabel saw that a little
distance further on, and just ahead, there was a big black hole in the
ice, and Kittie was skating straight toward it. Mabel tried to scream,
but she says the sound froze on her pallid lips. Then George saw the
hole, too, and rushed toward Kittie, and quicker than I can write it
Kittie went in that hole and down.

Mabel says George was there almost as soon, calling to Mabel to keep
back out of danger. Usually when people have to rescue others,
especially in stories, they call to some one to bring a board, and some
one does, and it is easy. But very often in real life there isn't any
board or any one to bring it, and this was indeed the desperate
situation that confronted my hero. There was nothing to do but plunge in
after Kittie, and he plunged, skates and all. Then Mabel heard him gasp
and laugh a little, and he called out: "It's all right, by Jove! The
water isn't much above my knees." And even as he spoke Mabel saw Kittie
rise in the water and sort of hurl herself at him and pull him down into
the water, head and all. When they came up they were both half
strangled, and Mabel was terribly frightened; for she thought George was
mistaken about the depth, and they would both drown before her eyes; and
then she would see that picture all her life, as they do in stories, and
her hair would turn gray. She began to run up and down on the ice and
scream; but even as she did so she heard these extraordinary words come
from between Kittie James's chattering teeth:

"_Now you are good and wet_!"