"You ought not to be hard on him," said Westerfelt; "he must have meant
what he said."

"You are jest like all the rest, I reckon," she said; "men think girls
don't care for nothin' but sweet talk."

Just then the old negro fiddler moved into the chimney-corner and raked
his violin with his bow. Jennie Wynn knew that he was about to ask the
couples to take their places for the first dance. She did not want
Westerfelt to feel obliged to ask her to be his partner, so she
pretended to be interested in the talk of a couple on her left.

"Do they dance the lancers?" asked Westerfelt.

"No, jest the reg'lar square dance. Only one or two know the lancers,
an' they make a botch of it whenever they try to teach the rest. Uncle
Mack cayn't play the music for it, anyway, though he swears he can."

She glanced across the room at a pretty little girl with short curly
hair, slender body, and small feet, and added, significantly, "Sarah
Wambush is our brag dancer."

He understood what she meant. "Too short for a fellow as tall as I am,
though," he said.

"Git yo' pahtners fer de quadrille!" cried the fiddler, in a sing-song
voice, quite in harmony with his music. Westerfelt did not want to
dance. He had ridden hard that day, and was tired and miserable, but
he saw no way of escape. The party had been given in his honor, and he