sport himself, but he was especially proficient in the art of strapping on a
lady's skates, and murmuring,--as he adjusted the last buckle,--"The prettiest
foot and ankle on the river!" It cannot be denied that this compliment gave
secret pleasure to the fair village maidens who received it, but it was a
pleasure accompanied by electric shocks of excitement. A girl's foot might
perhaps be mentioned, if a fellow were daring enough, but the line was rigidly
drawn at the ankle, which was not a part of the human frame ever alluded to in
the polite society of Edgewood at that time.

Rose, in her red linsey-woolsey dress and her squirrel furs and cap, was the
life of every gathering, and when Stephen took her hand and they glided
upstream, alone together in the crowd, he used to wish that they might skate
on and on up the crystal ice-path of the river, to the moon itself, whither it
seemed to lead them.




VIII

The Garden of Eden

But the Saco all this time was meditating one of its surprises. The snapping
cold weather and the depth to which the water was frozen were aiding it in its
preparation for the greatest event of the season. On a certain gray Saturday
in March, after a week of mild temperature, it began to rain as if, after
months of snowing, it really enjoyed a new form of entertainment. Sunday
dawned with the very flood-gates of heaven opening, so it seemed. All day long
the river was rising under its miles of unbroken ice, rising at the
threatening rate of four inches an hour.