ey stood between the master fiddler and Susie
Bennett, and there was a sudden hush in the room. "Friends and
neighbors," she said, "we now declare the Hall of Happy Hours open for
the general good of the village. If it had not been for the generosity
of our landlord, Mr. Lemuel Hamilton, we could never have given you this
pleasure, and had not our helpers been so many, we could never have made
the place so beautiful. Before the general dancing begins there will be
a double quadrille of honor, in which all those will take part who have
driven a nail, papered or painted a wall, dug a spadeful of earth, or
done any work in or about the Yellow House."

"Three cheers for Mrs. Carey!" called Bill Harmon, and everybody
complied lustily.

"Three cheers for Lemuel Hamilton!" and the rafters of the barn rang
with the response.

Just then the Admiral changed his position to conceal the moisture that
was beginning to gather in his eyes; and the sight of a personage so
unspeakably magnificent in a naval uniform induced Osh Popham to cry
spontaneously: "Three cheers for the Admiral! I don't know what he ever
done, but he looks as if he could, all right!" at which everybody
cheered and roared, and the Admiral to his great surprise made a speech,
during which the telltale tears appeared so often in his eyes and in his
voice, that Osh Popham concluded privately that if the naval hero ever
did meet an opposing battleship he would be likelier to drown the enemy
than fire into them!

The double quadrille of honor passed off with much elegance, everybody
not participating in it being green with envy because he was not. Mrs.
Carey and the Admiral were partners; Nancy danced with Mr. Popham,
Kathleen with Digby, Julia with Bill Harmon. The other couples were Mrs.
Popham and Gilbert, Lallie Joy and Cyril Lord, Olive and Nat Harmon,
while Mrs. Bill led out a very shy and uncomfortable gentleman who had
dug the ditches for Cousin Ann's expensive pipes.

Then the fun and the frolic began in earnest. The girls had been
practising the old-fashioned contra dances all summer, and training the
younger generation in them at the Vacation School. The old folks needed
no rehearsal! If you had waked any of them in the night suddenly they
could have called the changes for Speed the Plough, The Soldier's Joy,
The Maid in the Pump Room, or Hull's Victory.

Money Musk brought Nancy and Mr. Henry Lord on to the floor as head
couple; a result attained by