“NOW TREAD WE A MEASURE.”
Shall we ever grow too old to recall the pleasure of our school dances? Then lights seem brighter, toilets more ravishing, music sweeter, our partners more fascinating, and the supper more tempting than ever before or after.
The house was brilliantly lighted from top to bottom, excepting in such cosy corners as were specially conducive to confidential chats, and in these softly shaded lamps cast a fairy-like light.
Miss Preston, dressed in black velvet, with some rich old lace to enhance its charms, received her guests in the great hall, some of the older girls receiving with her.
There were ten or more girls who were taking special courses, and these were styled “parlor boarders,” and at the end of the school term would enter society. Consequently, this dance was looked upon as a preliminary step for the one to follow, and the girls regarded it as a sort of “golden mile-stone” in their lives, which marked off the point at which “the brook and river meet.”
A prettier, happier lot of girls could hardly have been found, and none looked lovelier, or happier, than Toinette. Her dress, a soft, creamy white chiffon, admirably suited to her golden coloring, had been sent to her by her father, whose taste was unerring. No matter how many miles of this big globe divided them, he never forgot her needs, and, if unable to supply them himself, took good care that some one else should do so. So the dress had arrived the night before, and Miss Preston had been able to give her another pleasant surprise for the dance. And now she looked as the lilies of the field for fairness.
She was whirling away upon her partner’s arm, when, chancing to glance toward the door, she beheld something which brought her to an abrupt stand-still, much to her partner’s amazement. Miss Preston stood in the doorway, and, standing beside her, with one hand resting lightly upon his hip and the other raised a little above his head, and resting against the door-casing, stood a tall, remarkably handsome man. His attitude was unstudied, but brought out to perfection the fine lines of his figure.
Hastily exclaiming: “Oh, please, excuse me, or else come with me,” Toinette glided between the whirling figures, and, forgetful of all else, cried out in a joyous voice: “Papa, papa Clayton, where did you come from?”
It was so like the childish voice he had loved to hear so long ago, that he started with pleasure.
During the brief holiday Toinette had spent with him he had missed the spontaneity he had known in the little child, and, without being able to analyze it, felt that something was wanting in the girl. She had been sweet and winning, yet under it all had been a manner quite incomprehensible to him, as though she did not feel quite sure of her position in his affections. Her laugh had lacked the true girlish ring, and her conversation with him seemed guarded, as though she had never quite spoken all her thoughts.
He had been immeasurably distressed by it, for he could not understand the cause, and bitterly reproached himself for not being better acquainted with his own child. In the merry girl who now stood before him, her eyes shining, her cheeks flushed with excitement, her voice so joyous, he saw no trace of the listless one he had placed in Miss Preston’s charge two months before.
Slipping one arm about her, he snuggled her close to his side, as he answered:
“A blue-coated biped left a good, substantial hint at my office not long since, and this is what came of following it.”
“You did it! I’m sure of it,” laughed Toinette, shaking her finger at Miss Preston, as the latter said: “I leave you to a livelier entertainer, now, Mr. Reeve, while I go to look after some of my guests who may not be so fortunately situated,” and she slipped away, Toinette calling after her: “You are responsible for most of the nice things which happen here. Oh, daddy,” dropping unconsciously into the old childish pet name, “I’ve such stacks of things to tell you. But, excuse me just one second, while I find a partner for that boy I’ve left stranded high and dry over there; doesn’t he look miserable? Then I’ll come back,” and, kissing her hand gaily, she ran off. Returning a moment or two later, she said:
“There! he’s all fixed, and is sure to have a good time with Ethel and Lou; they’re not a team, but a four-in-hand. Now, come and have a dance with me, and then we’ll go off all by ourselves and have the cosiest time you ever dreamed of. I feel so proud to have you all to myself,” she added, as they glided away to the soft strains of the music, “so sort of grown-up and grand with such a handsome partner.”
“Hear! hear! Do you want to make me vain? I haven’t been accustomed to hearing such barefaced compliments. They make me blush.”
“I really believe they do,” answered Toinette, throwing back her head to get a better look at him, and laughing softly when she saw a slight flush upon his face. “Never mind, it is all in the family, you know.”
“Perhaps I have other reasons for feeling a trifle elated,” he said, as the dance came to an end and he followed Toinette to one of the cozy corners. Springing up among the cushions, she patted them invitingly, and said:
“Come, sit down here beside me, and let me tell you all about the loveliest time of my life. Oh, daddy, I do so love to be here, and you don’t know how good Miss Preston is to me. She is good to us all, but, somehow the other girls don’t seem to need so much setting straight as I have. I think I must have been all kinked up in little hard knots before I came here, and Miss Preston has begun to untie them. She hasn’t got all untied yet, but I feel so sort of loosened up and easy that everything seems lots more comfortable.”
“I FEEL SO SORT OF GROWN UP AND GRAND.”
Clayton Reeve did not smile at Toinette’s odd way of explaining her feelings. He knew it to be a fourteen-year-old girl who spoke, and that her thoughts, to be natural, must be put into her own words.
On she rambled, telling one thing after another, and, while they were talking, Helen Burgess stopped near their snuggery. It was too dimly lighted for her to discover them, and the next thing they knew they were unwitting eavesdroppers, for Helen was talking very earnestly to one of her boon companions, a day-pupil at the school, and one of the brightest in it, but, like Helen, not embarrassed with riches. For some time the girls had been saving their small allowances toward the purchase of cameras, but so slowly did the sums accumulate that it was rather discouraging for them. They were now talking about their respective ways of procuring the sums of money needed, and the trifle they had managed to save, and the small amounts they earned in one way or another, to augment the original sums, seemed so paltry to Toinette, who never stopped to ask whence came the five-dollar bills so regularly sent her each week, and who, had a fancy entered her head for one, would have walked out and bought a camera very much as she would have bought a paper of pins.