“Well, upon compulsion, I admit that you are.”
“Then being a fine fellow does not diminish the said fellow’s chances of being blessed with a wife quite superfine.”
“If I thought you were personal, Peter, I should object to the mercantile adjective. ‘Superfine,’ indeed!”
“I am personal. I withdraw the obnoxious phrase, and substitute transcendent. No, Fanny dear, I read Wade’s experience in my own. I do not feel very much concerned about him. He is big enough to take care of himself. A man who is sincere, self-possessed, and steady does not get into miseries with beautiful Amazons like our friend. He knows too much to try to make his love run up hill; but let it once get started, rough running, gives it vim. Wade will love like a deluge, when he sees that he may, and I’d advise obstacles to stand off.”
“It was pretty, Peter, to see cold Mary Damer so gentle and almost tender.”
“I always have loved to see the first beginnings of what looks like love, since I saw ours.”
“Ours,” she said, — “it seems like yesterday.”
And then together they recalled that fair picture against its dark ground of sorrow, and so went on refreshing the emotions of that time until Fanny smiling said, —
“There must be something magical in skates, for here we are talking sentimentally like a pair of young lovers.”
