The girls all looked slily at him, and many a one wished in her heart that she had not been so hasty in choosing her partner, nay, that she had remained a wallflower for that night.
At last the young stranger wended his steps towards that corner where Jella was sitting alone, moping. He no sooner caught sight of her than he went gracefully up, and, looking at her with a merry twinkle in his eyes, and a most mischievous smile upon his lips:
"And you, my pretty one? Don't you dance this evening?" he asked.
"I never dance, either this evening or any other."
"And why not?"
"Because there is not a single young man I care to dance with."
"Oh, Jella!" whispered the girls, "dance with him if he asks you; we should so much like to see how he dances."
"Then it would be useless asking you to dance the Kolo with me, I suppose?"
"Oh, Jella! dance with him," whispered the young men; "it would be an unheard-of rudeness to refuse dancing with a stranger who has no partner."
"Even if I did not care about dancing, I should do so for the sake of our village."