merriment.

From time to time the old fiddler stole a glance at Miss Vesta Dale,
as she sat erect and stately, leaning against the wall of the house.
She was beginning to grow uneasy. Her foot also began to pat the
ground. She moved slightly, swayed on her seat; her fingers beat time,
as did the slender, well-shaped foot which peeped from under her scant
blue skirt. Suddenly De Arthenay stopped short, and tapped sharply on
his fiddle, while the dancers, breathless and exhausted, fell back by
the roadside again. Stepping out from the porch, he made a low bow to
Miss Vesta. "Chorus Jig!" he cried, and struck up the air of that
time-honored dance. Miss Vesta frowned, shook her head resolutely,--
rose, and standing opposite the old fiddler, began to dance.

Here was a new marvel, no less strange in its way than Melody's wild
grace of movement, or the sudden madness of the village crowd. The
stately white-haired woman moved slowly forward; the old man bowed
again; she courtesied as became a duchess of Nature's own making.
Their bodies erect and motionless, their heads held high, their feet
went twinkling through a series of evolutions which the keenest eye
could hardly follow. "Pigeon-wings?" Whole flocks of pigeons took
flight from under that scant blue skirt, from those wonderful shrunken
trousers of yellow nankeen. They moved forward, back, forward again,
as smoothly as a wave glides up the shore. They twinkled round and
round each other, now back to back, now face to face. They chassed
into corners, and displayed a whirlwind of delicately pointed toes;
they retired as if to quarrel; they floated back to make it up again.
All the while not a muscle of their faces moved, not a gleam of fun
disturbed the tranquil sternness of their look; for dancing was a
serious business thirty years ago, when they were young, and they had