But, surely, there was magic in the bow of that old fiddler! And, surely, no other tune in the world was so lonely, so light-footed, so beckoning! Do what one would one must needs up and follow it.
Without quite knowing how it came about, they were soon all tripping and bobbing and gliding and tossing, with their minds on fire, while Miss Primrose wagged her head in time to the measure, and Professor Wisp, shouting directions the while, wound himself in and out among them, as if they were so many beads, and he the string on which they were threaded.
Suddenly the music stopped, and flushed, laughing, and fanning themselves with their pocket-handkerchiefs, the Crabapple Blossoms flung themselves down on the floor, against a pile of bulging sacks in one of the corners, indifferent for probably the first time in their lives to possible damage to their frocks.
But Miss Primrose cried out sharply, "Not there, dears! Not there!"
In some surprise they were about to move, when Professor Wisp whispered something in her ear, and, with a little meaning nod to him, she said, "Very well, dears, stay where you are. It was only that I thought the floor would be dirty for you."
"Well, it wasn't such bad fun after all," said Moonlove Honeysuckle.
"No," admitted Prunella Chanticleer reluctantly. "That old man can play!"
"I wonder what's in these sacks; it feels too soft for apples," said Ambrosine Pyepowders, prodding in idle curiosity the one against which she was leaning.
"There's rather a queer smell coming from them," said Moonlove.
"Horrid!" said Prunella, wrinkling up her little nose.