“He ain’t proud,” admitted Philip. “He’s free to talk with everybody.”
“Humph!” remarked Mary Thompson, sitting at the other side of Philip; “he ought to be. Folks in Georger Chapel neighborhood is just as good as anybody.”
“Well, anyhow, I know he ain’t a prettier dancer than Jane,” sighed Nora, whose folks would not allow her to indulge in the godless motion which the music of a fiddle inspires. While Jane stirred and chatted, she was swaying and taking dance-steps, as if unable to refrain from spinning away through the trees. In this great woods drawing-room, where so many were gathered, it was impossible for her to hear any comment that went on.
“Jane makes a good appearance on the floor,” responded Philip, who, being male, could withstand the general denunciations of the preacher and his mother’s praying at him in meeting. “I like to lead her out to dance.”
“Uncle and Aunt Davis are just as easy with Jane as if they wasn’t perfessors of religion,” sighed Nora Waddell.
“And their boys thinks so much of her,” added Mary Thompson. “John can’t go anywhere unless she ties his neck-han’ketcher for him. I’ve knowed him, when Jane was sick, to come and lean over her to get it fixed.”
“If she’s to leave them,” said Philip, “I wonder how they’d do without her?”
“She’s goin’ to marry Cousin Jimmy Thompson, that I know,” said Mary.
“She’s engaged to Dr. Miller in Lancaster,” insisted Nora. “I’ve saw voluntines he’s sent her.”
“Dick Hanks thinks he’s goin’ to get her,” laughed Philip. “He told me she’s as good as promised him. And Dick’s a good feller, if he wasn’t such a coward.”