"Well, you needn't. Wait for me here till my dance is over, then Aunt won't know any thing about it," laughed wilful Dolly over her shoulder, as she was swept away into the many-colored whirlpool that circled round the hall to the entrancing music of a waltz.
While it lasted, words were needless; for eyes did the talking, smiles proud or tender telegraphed volumes of poetry, the big hand held the little one so close that it burst quite out of the old glove rosy with the pressure, and the tall head was often so near the short one that the light locks powdered the dark ones.
"A heavenly waltz!" panted Dolly, when it ended, feeling that she could go on for ever, blind to the droll despair of poor Parker, as, heroically faithful to his trust, he struggled frantically to keep the happy pair in sight.
"Now we'll have a still more heavenly promenade in the corridor. Ben is busy apologizing to half a dozen ladies whose trains he has walked up in his mad career after us, so we are safe for a time," answered John, ready to brave the wrath of many Aunt Marias; for the revolutionary spirit was high within him, and he had quite made up his mind that resistance to tyrants was obedience to the little god he served just then.
"Oh, John, how glad I am to see you after all this worry, and how nice it was of you to come in such grand style to-night! I was so afraid you couldn't manage it," said Dolly, hanging on his arm and surveying her gallant Governor with pardonable pride.
"My blessed girl, there was nothing I couldn't manage with the prospect of meeting you before me. Hasn't it been hard times for both of us? You've had the hardest, I'm afraid, shut up with the dragon and no refuge from daily nagging and Parker's persecution. If you hadn't the bravest little heart in the world, you'd have given up by this;" and, taking advantage of a shadowy corner, John embraced his idol, under pretence of drawing her cloak about her.
"I'll never give up the ship!" cried the girl, quoting Lawrence of the "Chesapeake," with a flash of the eye good to see.
"Stand to your guns, and we'll yet say, 'We've met the enemy, and they are ours,'" answered John, in the words of brave Perry, and with a ring to his voice which caused a passing waiter to pause, fancying he was called.
Beckoning to him, John gave Dolly a glass of lemonade, and, taking one himself, said with a look that made the toast a very eloquent one to both of them,—
"The love of liberty—and—the liberty of love."