"Play us a waltz, Caroline, there's a love; the very liveliest you can find. Tiny and I want to try the boards while we can enjoy them to perfection, that is, when we are the only persons in the room."
"You must excuse me, Percy," she replied somewhat pettishly. "I should think you would have dancing enough in the course of the evening; and what will our friends think, if they come and find me playing?"
"Think? why, that you are very obliging, which at present you are not," answered Percy, laughing; "never mind, Emmy; let us try what our united lungs will do."
"You may if you like, Percy, but really I am not clever enough to dance and sing at the same time—I should have no breath left," was her as joyous rejoinder.
"Come and dance, Caroline, if you will not play;" exclaimed Edward, who after decorating his button-hole with a sprig of holly, seemed seized with Percy's dancing-mania. "Do give me an opportunity of practicing the graces before I am called upon to display them."
"My love of dancing is not so great as to attempt it without music, so practice by yourself, Edward," was Caroline's quick reply.
"Without spectators, you mean, Lina," observed her brother, very dryly; and as Emmeline begged him not to tease her, he asked—
"What has put her in this ill-humor, Emmy?"
"Oh, I don't know exactly; but if you let her alone, she will soon recover it."
"Well, to please you, I will; for you look so pretty to-night, I can not resist you."