an unchallenged slow walk. Then Rollo ungloved his right
hand and held it out.

'I cannot see your face,' said he. 'Give me your hand, so that
I may know, while I hold it, that you are not displeased.'

'Why, Mr. Rollo?' said Hazel, with the same half laugh, 'you
are very--extraordinary! It strikes me your one petition covers
a good many. Must I take the glove off?--if you are to be
indulged.'

'There!' said he, taking her hand in the same warm firm grasp
she had known before. 'I am going to ask you to promise me
something--that it will not be pleasant to promise. Miss
Hazel'--speaking low and slowly--'do not dance round dances any
more!'

The tone was low, also it was very earnest and very grave.

'What?' she said, in a sort of but half comprehending way.
'Why not? what is the matter with them? I am hardly the least
bit tired.'

'You don't know!' he said, with a slight pressure of the hand
he held. 'You don't know. This is why not, Miss Hazel--that I
would not see my sister in them. Do you understand?'

'O yes,' she answered. 'I have seen people before who did not
like dancing,--two or three, perhaps. But there is always
somebody to dislike everything, I think. You do not enjoy it
yourself, Mr. Rollo,--and so you do not know.'

'I have danced twenty dances where you have danced one. I know
what they are made of. You only know how they look.'

'Hardly that,' said Wych Hazel. 'I know a little how they
feel. I have never had an outside view, I believe.'

'Can you do me the great honour to take my view,--and my word
for it?'

'If you liked flying to music as well as I do, you would take
mine,' she said. 'Air is better than earth, when you can get
it.'

'Do you think I would wish to interfere with your pleasure, or
presume to interfere with your actions, without reasons so
strong that I can hardly express their significance? Believe
me, if you knew these round dances as well as I know them, you
would never be mixed up in one of them any more.'

'Mixed up?' said Wych Hazel. 'Do you suppose I do all the wild
things some people do, Mr. Rollo?'

'No,' he said; but he left his plea standing.

'Well then what is the matter? If ever you hear of my
"exchanging hospitalities," I will give you leave for a
lecture a mile long.'

'Your eyes are innocent eyes and do not see. Can you not trust
me far enough to act upon my knowledge, and distrust yours?'

'But trusting you does not make me distrust myself,' she