ing from the knot at the back of her
head, a style which set off her radiant face with peculiarly piquant
effect. Her cheeks matched her frock, and her eyes--what were her eyes?
Black stars, or wells of darkness into which a man might fall and drown
himself?

She seemed to draw to herself, as she danced, among the soberer colours
of her elders and the white frocks of the country cousins, all the light
in the room. "I would look at something else if I could," thought
Richard to himself, "but it would be only a blur to me after looking at
her."

When Roberta returned Uncle Rufus's bow it was with a posturing such as
Richard had seen only in plays; it struck him now that the graceful
droop of her whole figure to the floor was the most perfect thing he had
ever seen; and when her head came up and he saw her laughing face lift
again to meet her partner's, he considered the boyish old gentleman who
took her hand and led her on in the intricate figures of the dance a
person to be envied.

"Aren't Rob and Uncle Rufus the greatest couple you ever laid eyes on?"
exulted Louis Gray, coming up to greet him. "The next is going to be a
waltz. Will you ask Mrs. Stephen? We'll let you begin easily, but shall
expect you to end by dancing with Aunt Ruth, Uncle Rufus's wife--which
will be no hardship when you really know her, I assure you. We indulge
in no ultra-modern dances on Christmas Eve, you see, and have no
dance-cards; it's always part of the fun to watch the scramble for
partners when the number is announced."

So presently Richard found himself upon the floor with little Mrs.
Stephen Gray, waltzing with her according to his own discretion, though
all around them were dancers whose steps ranged from present-day methods
to the ancient fashion of turning round and round without ever a
reverse. He saw Roberta herself revolving in slow circles in an endless
spiral, piloted by the proud arm of Mr. Philip Gray. She nodded at him
past her uncle's shoulder, and he wondered seriously if she meant to
dance with elderly uncles all the evening.

Before he could approach her she was off in the next dance with a young
cousin, a lad of seventeen. Richard himself took out one of the country
cousins to whom Mrs. Stephen had presented him, a very pretty,
fair-haired girl in white muslin and blue ribbons; and he did his best
to give her a good time. He found her pleasant company, as Mrs. Stephen
had prophesied, and at another time--any time--