“She is an enigma,” Amy thought. “I mean to ask Craig Saltus about the family. He must have heard of them. Let me see,—Sherman is her name, I believe, though I only know her as Fanny, or No. 1. Queer fad of Mrs. Groves to designate them by numbers. This girl is certainly superior to the rest and has done my dress beautifully.”
It was time now for the expected guests to arrive, and pleased with herself, Amy went down to meet them. The night was fine. There was no moon, but the stars were out in full force, and the lanterns on the lawn and the reflectors on the piazza made it almost as light as day on three sides of the house, which presented a fairy scene after the dancing had commenced. As Amy had predicted, there were many lookers on. Young people from the different farmhouses in the neighborhood came to see the sight, and with the servants of the house crowded around the windows, watching the dancers, and occasionally, as the music became more and more exhilarating, taking a few steps themselves. Sherry was not with them, nor in the chair where Amy had told her she could sit and look on. With the first strain of music a wave of homesickness swept over her, and she would have given much to have been with her mother and Katy. It was a mistake coming here as she did. She was feeling it more and more, and had had hard work to keep back her tears ever since the guests began to arrive and she was free to do what she pleased. Going to the far end of the piazza, which looked towards the stables, she sat down in the shadow and listened to the sounds of revelry as they came to her from the other side of the house. If there was one thing she liked more than another it was to dance, and she kept time to the music with her hands and feet, until at last, as the strains of her favorite waltz came floating on the night air, she sprang up and began to whirl round and round half the length of the piazza and back to her chair, where she stopped a moment to take breath and then began her solitary dance again, shutting her eyes as she felt a little dizzy, and seeing nothing until she found herself in the arms of a young man coming from the opposite direction.
Alex. was having a good time, and, satisfied that his “blow out” bade fair to equal the Crosby party and that everybody was having a good time, he had started for the kitchen to tell the chef that refreshments were to be served in half an hour. As he turned on to the side piazza, his nearest route to the kitchen, he caught the notes of the soft-toned, even-timed waltz, which was his favorite as well as Sherry’s, and saw the white figure coming towards him in the half shadows on that side of the house. Thinking it was his cousin Ruth, he began to whirl until he caught the figure in his arms, held it close to him and kept on till he reached a side light and saw that it was Sherry.
Wrenching herself from his arms, while her eyes flashed and her lips quivered, she said, “Mr. Marsh, how dare you insult me?”
“By George!” Alex. exclaimed, holding her hands in spite of her efforts to draw them from him. “I beg your pardon. I thought you were Ruth. You are about the same size, and that waltz got into my head. I meant no disrespect. I hope you will excuse me.”
He was apologizing to her as to a lady, and the angry look in her eyes began to soften and the tears to fill them. She couldn’t keep them back, and as Alex. held her hands they dropped upon her cheeks and stood upon her lashes.
“Fanny,” Alex. said, soothingly. “Don’t cry. You make me feel like a cad. I never insulted a woman in my life. I certainly would not begin with you. Why do you cry?”
“I don’t know, unless I am a little homesick,” Sherry replied, getting her hands free and wiping her tears away, while Alex. thought how beautiful she was, seen under that light.
As she met his look of admiration, which she could not mistake, she stepped back and continued: “I like to dance, and that waltz brought things back and made me think of home.”
“Yes, I see,” Alex. answered. “Of course you like to dance. Suppose we take another turn across the piazza.”