to dance. "Somebody is in love with me!

"'Oh, isn't it joyful, joyful, joyful--'"

[Illustration: "BLAIR IS IN LOVE WITH ME!"]




CHAPTER VI

When the company had gone,--"I thought they never _would_
go!" Nannie said--she rushed at her brother. "Blair!"

The boy flung up his head proudly. "She told you, did she?"

"You're engaged!" cried Nannie, ecstatically.

Blair started. "Why!" he said. "So I am! I never thought of it."
And when he got his breath, the radiant darkness of his eyes
sparkled into laughter. "Yes, _I'm engaged!_" He put his
hands into his pockets and strutted the length of the room; a
minute later he stopped beside the piano and struck a triumphant
chord; then he sat down and began to play uproariously, singing
to a crashing accompaniment:

"'... lived a miner, a forty-niner,
With his daughter Clementine!
Oh my darling, oh my _darling_--'"