over me, and I don't think I ever felt so kam in my life."

The blood rushed to the master's cheek with an unexpected consciousness
of guilt and shame. "But," he stammered awkwardly, "your daughter dances
beautifully herself; she has certainly had practice."

"That," said McKinstry, laying his gloved hand impressively on the
master's shoulder, with the empty little finger still more emphasized by
being turned backward in the net; "that may be ez it ez, but I wanted
to say that it was the simple, easy, fammily touch that you gev it, that
took me. Toward the end, when you kinder gathered her up and she sorter
dropped her head into your breast-pocket, and seemed to go to sleep,
like ez ef she was still a little girl, it so reminded me of the times
when I used to tote her myself walkin' by the waggin at Platt River,
that it made me wish the old woman was here to see it."

Still coloring, the master cast a rapid, sidelong glance at McKinstry's
dark red face and beard, but in the slow satisfaction of his features
there was no trace of that irony which the master's self-consciousness
knew.

"Then your wife is not here?" said Mr. Ford abstractedly.

"She war at church. She reckoned that I'd do to look arter Cressy--she
bein', so to speak, under conviction. D'ye mind walkin' this way a bit;
I want to speak a word with ye?" He put his maimed hand through the
master's arm, after his former fashion, and led him to a corner.

"Did ye happen to see Seth Davis about yer?"