ell as hers; it was even
betokened by the lightsome pose of his figure, and a scarcely subdued
buoyancy in his step. Moment by moment did the occult sympathy between
one another and the cadence of the music grow more assured and complete;
and at length--though precisely how it came about neither Cornelia nor
Bressant could have told--they were conscious of floating through the
room, mutually supporting and leading on each other, mind and motion
pulsating with the beat of the tune, amid a bright, half-seen chaos of
lights, faces, and forms, dancing a waltz!

Neither felt any surprise at what, but a few moments before, both would
have deemed an impossibility. The easy, whirling sweep of the motion,
not ending nor beginning, seemed, to Bressant as well as to Cornelia,
the most natural thing in the world. Beautifully as she danced, he was
no whit her inferior. They moved in complete accord. Years of practice
could not have made the harmony more perfect.

The charm of dancing, although nothing is easier than to experience it,
is something that eludes statement. It is the language of the body,
graceful and significant. It has that in it which will make it live and
be loved so long as men and women exist as such. The fascination of the
motion, the magic of the music, the hour, the lights; the nearness, the
touch of hands, the leaning, the support, the starting off in fresh
bewilderments; the trilling down the gamut of the hall; the pauses and
recommencements; even the little incidents of collision and escape; the
trips, slips, and quick recoveries; the breathless words whispered in
the ear, and the laughter; the dropped handkerchief, the crushed fan,
the faithless hair-pin--these, and a thousand more such small elements,
make dancing imperishable.

Presently--and it might have been after a minute or an hour, for all
they could have told--Bressant and Cornelia awoke to a sense of four
bare walls, papered with a pattern of abominable regularity, a floor of
rough and unwaxed boards, a panting crowd of country girls and bumpkins.
The music had ceased, and nothing remained in its place save a fiddle, a
harp, and an inferior piano.

"Come out to the door!" said Bressant, "the air here is not fit for us
to breathe."

They went, Cornelia leaning on his arm, silent; their minds inactive,
conscious only of a pleasant, dreamy feeling of magnetic communion. Both
felt impelled to keep together--to be in contact; the mere thought of
s