“Look! the King and a lady are dancing alone!” cried Betty. “Doesn’t he dance well?”
“That dance is called a Coranto. You see that every one in the room stands up when the King dances. There! He is calling to the musicians for a merrier tune, and now we shall see a country dance, very different from these stately measures.”
In a moment or two indeed the whole gay throng was jigging to a lively air such as Betty had heard the fiddler play for the milkmaids in Drury Lane.
“It’s a Morris dance,” she exclaimed. “We learn it at school.”
“Yes, there’s a fashion in our day to bring back the old-fashioned country dances that were common in England two or three hundred years ago. See how the King is enjoying it,” she added. “You can understand why, in spite of his failings as a ruler, he is so popular with his subjects. They love his free and easy ways, and his lazy good-nature.”
“I suppose Mr. Pepys will write about this ball?” Betty suggested.
THE KING ENTERED, LEADING THE QUEEN BY THE HAND
“Oh yes. The ‘Diary’ says, ‘Mr. Povey and I to Whitehall: he taking me thither on purpose to carry me into the ball this night before the King,’ and a few lines further on we read, ‘Then to country dances; the King leading the first, which he called for.’”
“And we’ve actually seen him do it!” Betty exclaimed.