"Yes."
"God bless you!"
He let her go. He walked on air. He threw open the door.
There on the threshold—stood "Momma."
"I kind of see," she drawled, "why Sheila don't take no interest in dancin'!"
"You're wrong," said Sheila very clearly. "I have been persuaded. I am going to the dance."
Sylvester laughed aloud. "One for you, Momma!" he said. "Come on down, old girl, while Miss Sheila gets into her party dress. Say, Aura, aren't you goin' to give me a dance to-night?"
His wife looked curiously at his red, excited face. She followed him in silence down the stairs.
Sheila stood still listening to their descending steps, then she knelt down beside her little trunk and opened the lid. The sound of the fiddle stole hauntingly, beseechingly, tauntingly into her consciousness. There in the top tray of her trunk wrapped in tissue paper lay the only evening frock she had, a filmy French dress of white tulle, a Christmas present from her father, a breath-taking, intoxicating extravagance. She had worn it only once.
It was with the strangest feeling that she took it out. It seemed to her that the Sheila that had worn that dress was dead.