'Here? No. You bet. My mother is my mother, and nobody ever charged her with being jolly, I suppose.'
'How could you dance with candles?' said Primrose's astonished voice.
'Yes. Six of us had great long wax candles, lighted; and we stood up on a chair.'
'Six of you on a chair!'
'The old question of the schoolmen!'—cried Nightingale, bursting into a laugh.
'Of course on six chairs, I mean. Of course. Six of us on a chair!'—
'But what did you get on chairs for?'
'Why!—then the gentlemen danced round us, and at the signal— the leader gave the signal—the gentlemen jumped up as high as they could and tried to blow out our lights; and they had to keep step and jump; and if any gentleman could blow out the candle nearest him he could dance with that lady. Didn't we make them jump, though! We held our candles up so high, you know, they could not get at them. Unless we liked somebody and wanted him for a partner. O we had a royal time!'
'Did the gentlemen dance—and blow—indiscriminately?' inquired
Miss Kennedy with a curl of her lips.
'No, no!—how you do tell things, Josephine!' said Miss Burr. 'Two gentlemen for each chair,—and whichever of the two put the candle out, he danced with the lady.'