The Street of the City by Grace Livingston Hill

given the girl’s skate a quick fling across the ice, and then suddenly vanished in a way he knew and had often practiced in his early youth. So when Willoughby returned with the skate in his hand enemy number two had disappeared from off the face of the earth.
    Val dropped down before the girl and helped her put her skate on. Then taking her hand he set her upon her feet and looked her over.
    Her hair was awry, the little green cap sat crazily on her brown curls, there were tears on her white cheeks, but not in her eyes, and with brave determination she was holding her trembling lips fairly still.
    “Are you sure you are able to go on home this way?” he asked her, looking into her wide eyes that had been so frightened when he first came up.
    “Oh yes,” she said, with a catch in her voice. “Yes, I can go on! I’m so sorry I made you trouble again! How wonderful that you should have come along just now! I don’t know what I should have done!”
    He smiled.
    “I’m glad I was here. Who were they? Do you know them? Have they troubled you before?”
    “No, I never saw them before till this morning. They stood in the hall when I went in and were awfully fresh. They asked me to go dancing, and when I told them no they insisted they would meet me out here at closing time. I didn’t answer them, and I forgot all about them, or I would have gone out the front door and over to the river down beyond the next street. I never knew any boys like that.”
    “There are a lot of tough fellows down in this neighborhood, of course,” said Willoughby, “but I don’t imagine they will trouble you again. Perhaps we had better curve over in the direction of that one and see if he is coming to or whether I ought to send someone to look after him.”
    Then, still holding Frannie’s hand protectively he set out slowly at first, watching the prostrate form of Spike sprawled across the ice.
    “He’s coming to,” said Willoughby. “I saw him move his arm just now. Didn’t you? There! He’s turning his head. He’ll be himself soon. I’ll just stop at the next corner and tell the plant night watchman to take a look at him and send for an ambulance if necessary, or a taxi, if he can’t navigate himself. I wonder where his companion is.”
    “He won’t come back while you are here,” said Frannie in a low, trembly voice. “He’s a coward. I watched his face when you took the other one off and flung him out on the ice. He was scared to death. And I don’t think he has any very great love for his pal, either. He won’t want it known that he was mixed up in this.”
    He looked at her and smiled.
    “You certainly are a brave girl,” he said fervently. “I watched you defend yourself while I was sprinting to the spot and you never flinched once. I was afraid you might faint.”
    “I don’t faint,” said Frannie seriously, as if it were a thing to be deplored. “I just don’t know how.”
    “Fine! That’s wonderful. There are not many girls who could claim that. But aren’t you feeling pretty well broken up after all this? I think we had better steer in to shore at the next street and take a taxi.”
    “Oh no, please! I’m all right. Just a little shaky, but I’ll be steady in a minute or two. Skating isn’t any effort.”
    “Oh, isn’t it? Well that may be so at times, but after a brisk fist fight such as you’ve been through, I can’t think it is the best thing. We’ll just steer for that corner and take the next bus.”
    “Please, no,” said Frannie frantically. “It rests me to skate. It really does. And I should be frantic hanging around waiting for buses and changing from one to another. You don’t understand. It does steady my nerves to skate.”
    He studied her face an instant.
    “Oh, very well,” he said, “but you’re going to let me help steady you. Here, cross your hands. I think we can travel faster and easier this way.” He took her mittened hands in a firm clasp, and they sailed off