CHAPTER IX.
LOVE IN THE FIRST DEGREE.
Peter Skerrett came sailing round the purple rocks of his Point, skating like a man who has been in the South of Europe for two winters.
He was decidedly Anglicized in his whiskers, coat, and shoes. Otherwise he in all respects repeated his well-known ancestor, Skerrett of the Revolution; whose two portraits—1. A ruddy hero in regimentals, in Gilbert Stuart's early brandy-and-water manner; 2. A rosy sage in senatorials, in Stuart's later claret-and-water manner—hang in his descendant's dining-room.
Peter's first look was a provokingly significant one at the confused and blushing young lady. Secondly he inspected the Dying Gladiator on the ice.
"Have you been tilting at this gentleman, Mary?" he asked, in the voice of a cheerful, friendly fellow. "Why! Hullo. Hooray! It's Wade, Richard Wade, Dick Wade! Don't look, Miss Mary, while I give him the grips of all the secret societies we belonged to in College."
Mary, however, did look on, pleased and amused, while Peter plumped down on the ice, shook his friend's hand, and examined him as if he were fine crockery, spilt and perhaps shattered.
"It's not a case of trepanning, Dick, my boy?" said he.
