"Do you waltz?"

Mrs. Wade hesitated. She HAD, before marriage, and was a good waltzer.
"I do," she said timidly, "but do you think they"--

But before the poor widow could formulate her fears as to the reception
of "round dances," Brooks had darted to the piano, and the next moment
she heard with a "fearful joy" the opening bars of a waltz. It was an
old Julien waltz, fresh still in the fifties, daring, provocative
to foot, swamping to intellect, arresting to judgment, irresistible,
supreme! Before Mrs. Wade could protest, Brooks's arm had gathered up
her slim figure, and with one quick backward sweep and swirl they were
off! The floor was cleared for them in a sudden bewilderment of alarm--a
suspense of burning curiosity. The widow's little feet tripped quickly,
her long black skirt swung out; as she turned the corner there was
not only a sudden revelation of her pretty ankles, but, what was more
startling, a dazzling flash of frilled and laced petticoat, which
at once convinced every woman in the room that the act had been
premeditated for days! Yet even that criticism was presently forgotten
in the pervading intoxication of the music and the movement. The younger
people fell into it with wild rompings, whirlings, and clasping of hands
and waists. And stranger than all, a corybantic enthusiasm seized upon
the emotionally religious, and those priests and priestesses of Cybele
who were famous for their frenzy and passion in camp-meeting devotions
seemed to find an equal expression that night in the waltz. And when,
flushed and panting, Mrs. Wade at last halted on the arm of her partner,
they were nearly knocked over by the revolving Johnson and Mrs. Stubbs
in a whirl of gloomy exultation! Deacons and Sunday-school teachers
waltzed together until the long room shook, and the very bunting on