friend and neighbour is set against it. Not but that 'tis a terrible
tasty thing in good hands and well done; yes, indeed, so say I."

"All I meant was," said Dick, rather sorry that he had spoken
correctingly to a guest, "that 'tis in the dance; and a man has hardly
any right to hack and mangle what was ordained by the regular
dance-maker, who, I daresay, got his living by making 'em, and thought of
nothing else all his life."

"I don't like casting off: then very well; I cast off for no dance-maker
that ever lived."

Dick now appeared to be doing mental arithmetic, the act being really an
effort to present to himself, in an abstract form, how far an argument
with a formidable rival ought to be carried, when that rival was his
mother's guest. The dead-lock was put an end to by the stamping arrival
up the middle of the tranter, who, despising minutiae on principle,
started a theme of his own.

"I assure you, neighbours," he said, "the heat of my frame no tongue can
tell!" He looked around and endeavoured to give, by a forcible gaze of
self-sympathy, some faint idea of the truth.

Mrs. Dewy formed one of the next couple.

"Yes," she said, in an auxiliary tone, "Reuben always was such a hot
man."

Mrs. Penny implied the species of sympathy that such a class of
affliction required, by trying to smile and to look grieved at the same