the evening wore on, Sibley, who had been drinking quite freely,
tried to introduce, as far as possible, the excitement of a revel,
calling chiefly for swift waltzes and gallops through which he and
Ida whirled in a way that made people's heads dizzy.

Miss Burton, after going through a quadrille with Stanton early
in the evening, had declined to dance any more. She did not feel
very well, she explained to Van Berg as he sought her for the
next form; but he imagined that she early foresaw that Sibley and
others, and among them even Stanton, were inclined to give the
evening a character that was not to her taste.

As Ida had made herself somewhat prominent in inaugurating the
"ball," as Sibley took pains to term it on all occasions, Van Berg,
as a part of his tactics to win the beauty's good-will, tried at
first to make the affair successful. He danced with others, and
twice sought her hand; but in each case she rather indifferently
told him that she was engaged. He would not have sought her as a
partner after his first rebuff had he not imagined, from occasional
and furtive glances, that she was not as indifferent as she seemed.

Early in the evening it occurred to him that her slightly reckless
manner was assumed, but he saw that she was abandoning herself to
the growing excitement of the dance, as Sibley, her most frequent
partner, and others, were to the stronger excitement of liquor.
Observant mothers called away their daughters. Ladies, in whom the
instincts of true refined womanhood were in the ascendancy, looked
significantly at each other, and declined further invitations.

Van Berg had also withdrawn, but with his disposition to watch