“But you mustn't notice me, please,” she begged, “all the neighbours are coming, and there are so many girls,—the Powells and the Harrisons and the Dulaneys. I am going to wear pink, but you mustn't notice it, you know.”
“That's right,” said Jack Morson, “make him do his duty by the County, and keep your dances for Diggs and me.”
“I've done my duty by you, sir,” was Dan's prompt retort, “so I'll begin to do my pleasure by myself. Now I give you fair warning, Virginia, if you don't save the first reel for me, I'll dance all the rest with Betty.”
“Then it will be a Betty of your own making,” declared Betty over her shoulder, “for this Betty doesn't dance a single step with you to-night, so there, sir.”
“Your punishment be on your own head, rash woman,” said Dan, sternly, as he took up his riding-whip. “I'll dance with Peggy Harrison,” and he went out to Prince Rupert, lifting his hat, as he mounted, to Miss Lydia, who stood at her window above. A moment later they heard his horse's hoofs ringing in the drive, and his voice gayly whistling:—
“They tell me thou'rt the favor'd guest.”
When the others joined him in the turnpike, the four voices took up the air, and sent the pathetic melody fairly dancing across the snow.
“Do I thus haste to hall and bower
Among the proud and gay to shine?
Or deck my hair with gem and flower
To flatter other eyes than thine?
Ah, no, with me love's smiles are past;
Thou hadst the first, thou hadst the last.”
The song ended in a burst of laughter, and up the white turnpike, beneath the melting snow that rained down from the trees, they rode merrily back to Chericoke.
In the carriage way they found the Major, wrapped in his broadcloth cape, taking what he called a “breath of air.”