"What were you about, moping off alone, with a party in your honour, sir?"
"I was watching you, as I told his Excellency."
"Oh, fie!" she cried. "Why don't you assert yourself, Richard? There was a time when you gave me no peace."
"And then you rebuked me for dangling," I retorted.
Up started the music, the fiddlers bending over their bows with flushed faces, having dipped into the cool punch in the interval. Away flung my lady to meet Singleton, while I swung Patty, who squeezed my hand in return. And soon we were in the heat of it,—sober minuet no longer, but romp and riot, the screams of the lasses a-mingle with our own laughter, as we spun them until they were dizzy. My brain was a-whirl as well, and presently I awoke to find Dolly pinching my arm.
"Have you forgotten me, Richard?" she whispered. "My other hand, sir.
It is I down the middle."
Down we flew between the laughing lines, Dolly tripping with her head high, and then back under the clasped hands in the midst of a fire of raillery. Then the music stopped. Some strange exhilaration was in Dorothy.
"Do you remember the place where I used to play fairy godmother, and wind the flowers into my hair?" said she.
What need to ask?
"Come!" she commanded decisively.