‘O, yes, sir; I know that, and I thought you might offer to do it. But would you bring me back again?’
‘Of course I’ll bring you back. But, by-the-bye, can you dance?’
‘Yes.’
‘What?’
‘Reels, and jigs, and country-dances like the New-Rigged-Ship, and Follow-my-Lover, and Haste-to-the-Wedding, and the College Hornpipe, and the Favourite Quickstep, and Captain White’s dance.’
‘A very good list—a very good! but unluckily I fear they don’t dance any of those now. But if you have the instinct we may soon cure your ignorance. Let me see you dance a moment.’
She stood out into the garden-path, the stile being still between them, and seizing a side of her skirt with each hand, performed the movements which are even yet far from uncommon in the dances of the villagers of merry England. But her motions, though graceful, were not precisely those which appear in the figures of a modern ball-room.
‘Well, my good friend, it is a very pretty sight,’ he said, warming up to the proceedings. ‘But you dance too well—you dance all over your person—and that’s too thorough a way for the present day. I should say it was exactly how they danced in the time of your poet Chaucer; but as people don’t dance like it now, we must consider. First I must inquire more about this ball, and then I must see you again.’
‘If it is a great trouble to you, sir, I—’
‘O no, no. I will think it over. So far so good.’