Snap! Blind Benner broke a fiddle string, and was so grieved that he could not play that Bill delayed the dance until the string was again tuned.
Elizabeth was dancing with her oldest brother Levi. Her partner in the first quadrille had been her aged father, who danced no more that night.
Levi was tall and wore his hair long, falling on his shoulders. He was a school-teacher, and a strange combination of faculties found expression in his methods of instruction and discipline. His smile was potent with his pupils being both their reward and punishment; to the deserving it was a benediction, to the unfaithful it was a mocking grin, confounding and abashing them. He was gallant to his sister, and walked gracefully through the dance with her.
Elizabeth's partner in the third dance was Matthew McAnay, her brother, four years older than she. By occupation a wood-chopper, he was an active, strong man, but rather a clumsy dancer. Sometimes his face wore a smile similar to Levi's; to acquaintances it was tantalizing, to strangers annoying.
Cassius McAnay was Elizabeth's partner in the fourth dance. He, too, was her brother, two years her senior, and much like their elder brothers. He was his father's assistant in the coaling.
After the fourth dance John Gillfillan made his way along the ball-room to Elizabeth's side. The change of her manner as she accepted his arm for the next dance showed how welcome he was, yet they were not avowed lovers. He had not made his declaration, but she was expecting it that night. It came, yet not as she had hoped for it.
The ball-room was a long porch, which had once been the platform where freight was received when the Block had been a warehouse, Three-Sisters at that time being the terminus of a railroad. When the railroad was carried farther up the river, the warehouse was found to be unnecessary, and Colonel Hornberger, desiring to turn it into a tenement-house, bought it from the railroad company.
In it a dozen families could be comfortably accommodated, each family having five rooms, three upstairs and two down. The long platform was divided by fences, and to each door steps led from the street. In the openings thus made in the floor of the platform trap-doors were fitted.
These porches were the wash-rooms of the families; and on a Monday, when the washing of clothes took place, so many quarrels arose between the women that the house was given the nickname of the Block of Blazes.
On the night of Elizabeth's party there was harmony in the Block. The wash-tubs and benches were removed, the middle fences were taken away, the trap-doors were down, and the platform made a dancing-floor, which was lighted by candles placed in the windows, and by perforated stable-lanterns, swung on ropes above the heads of the dancers.