“SECOND couple, FALL in!” Beasley wheeled about and enacted the second couple.
“THIRD couple!” He fell in behind himself again.
“FOURTH couple, IF you please! BALANCE—ALL!—I beg your pardon, Miss Molanna, I'm afraid I stepped on your train.—SASHAY ALL!”
After the “sashay”—the noblest and most dashing bit of gymnastics displayed in the whole quadrille—he bowed profoundly to his invisible partner and came to a pause, wiping his streaming face. Old Bob dexterously swung A New Coon into the stately measures of a triumphal march.
“And now,” Beasley announced, in stentorian tones, “if the ladies will be so kind as to take the gentlemen's arms, we will proceed to the dining-room and partake of a slight collation.”
Thereupon came a slender piping of joy from that part of the room screened from us by the Tree.
“Oh, Cousin David Beasley, that was the BEAUTIFULLEST quadrille ever danced in the world! And, please, won't YOU take Mrs. Hunchberg out to supper?”
Then into the vision of our paralyzed and dumfounded watchers came the little wagon, pulled by the old colored woman, Bob's wife, in her best, and there, propped upon pillows, lay Hamilton Swift, Junior, his soul shining rapture out of his great eyes, a bright spot of color on each of his thin cheeks. He lifted himself on one elbow, and for an instant something seemed to be wrong with the brace under his chin.
Beasley sprang to him and adjusted it tenderly. Then he bowed elaborately toward the mantel-piece.
“Mrs. Hunchberg,” he said, “may I have the honor?” And offered his arm.