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What a senseless whirl it was! But she was thrilling with a new and strange excitement, too near the edge of pain to be long endured as a pleasure. If this were the influence of dancing, she did not wonder so much at her father’s scruples,–and yet it held her like a spell.

All hands were lifted now, making an arch, through which Evesham, holding Nancy by the hands, raced stooping and laughing. As they emerged at the door, he threw up his head to shake a brown lock back. He looked flushed, and boyishly gay, and his hazel eye searched the darkness with that subtle ray of triumph in it which had made Dorothy afraid. She drew back behind the tree and pressed her hot cheek to the cool, rough bark. She longed for the stillness of the starlit meadow, and the dim lane, with its faint perfumes and whispering leaves.

But now suddenly the music stopped, and the dance broke up in a tumult of voices. Dorothy stole backward in the shadow of the tree-trunk, till it joined the darkness of the meadow, and then fled,–stumbling along with blinded eyes, and the music still vibrating in her ears. There came a quick rush of footsteps behind her, swishing through the long grass. She did not look back, but quickened her pace, struggling to reach the gate. Evesham was there before her. He had swung the gate to and was leaning with his back against it, laughing and panting.

“I’ve caught you, Dorothy, you little deceiver! You’ll not get rid of me to-night with any of your tricks. I’m going to take you home to your mother, and tell her you were peeping at the dancing.”

“Mother knows I am here,” said Dorothy. “I asked her!” Her knees were trembling, and her heart almost choked her with its throbbing.

“I’m so glad you don’t dance, Dorothy. This is much nicer than the barn; and the katydids are better fiddlers than old Darby and his son. I’ll open the gate if you will put your hand in mine, so I can be sure of you–you little runaway!”

“I will stay here all night, first!” said Dorothy, in a low quivering voice.

“As you choose. I shall be happy as long as you are here.”

Dead silence, while the katydids seemed to keep time to their heart-beats; the fiddles began tuning for another reel, and the horses tethered near stretched out their necks with low inquiring whinneys.

“Dorothy,” said Evesham, softly, leaning toward her and trying to see her face in the darkness, “are you angry with me? Don’t you think you deserve a little punishment for the trick you played me at the mill-head?”

“It was thy fault for wetting me!” Dorothy was too excited and angry to cry, but she was as miserable as she had ever been in her life before. “I didn’t want thee to stay. People who force themselves where they are not wanted must take what they get!”

“What did you say, Dorothy?”

“I say I didn’t want thee then. I do not want thee now! Thee may go back to thy fiddling and dancing! I’d rather have one of those dumb brutes for company to-night than thee, Walter Evesham!”

“Very well! The reel has begun,” said Evesham. “Fanny Jordan is waiting to dance it with me, or if she isn’t she ought to be! Shall I open the gate for you?”

She passed out in silence, and the gate swung to with a heavy jar. She made good speed down the lane, and then waited outside the fence till her breath came more quietly.

“Is that thee, Dorothy?” Rachel’s voice called from the porch. She came out to meet her, and they went along the walk together. “How damp thy forehead is, child! is the night so warm?” They sat down on the low steps, and Dorothy slid her arm under her mother’s and laid her soft palm against the one less soft by twenty years of toil for others. “Thee’s not been long, dear; was it as much as thee expected?”