seeing her, very gallantly offered her a drink of the
liquor, which was gin-and-beer hot, pouring her out a tumblerful and
saying, in a moment or two: 'Surely, 'tis little Car'line Aspent that
was--down at Stickleford?'

She assented, and, though she did not exactly want this beverage, she
drank it since it was offered, and her entertainer begged her to come in
farther and sit down. Once within the room she found that all the
persons present were seated close against the walls, and there being a
chair vacant she did the same. An explanation of their position occurred
the next moment. In the opposite corner stood Mop, rosining his bow and
looking just the same as ever. The company had cleared the middle of the
room for dancing, and they were about to dance again. As she wore a veil
to keep off the wind she did not think he had recognized her, or could
possibly guess the identity of the child; and to her satisfied surprise
she found that she could confront him quite calmly--mistress of herself
in the dignity her London life had given her. Before she had quite
emptied her glass the dance was called, the dancers formed in two lines,
the music sounded, and the figure began.

Then matters changed for Car'line. A tremor quickened itself to life in
her, and her hand so shook that she could hardly set down her glass. It
was not the dance nor the dancers, but the notes of that old violin which
thrilled the London wife, these having still all the witchery that she
had so well known of yore, and under which she had used to lose her power
of independent will. How it all came back! There was the fiddling
figure against the wall; the large, oily, mop-like head of him, and
beneath the mop the face with closed eyes.

After the first moments of paralyzed reverie the familiar tune in the
familiar rendering made her laugh and shed tears simultaneously. Then a
man at the bottom of the dance, whose partner had dropped away, stretched
out his hand and beckoned to her to take the place. She did not want to
dance; she entreated by signs to be left where she was, but she was
entreating of the tune and its player rather than of the dancing man. The
saltatory tendency which the fiddler and his cunning instrument had ever
been able to start in her was seizing Car'line just as it had done in
earlier years, possibly assisted by the gin-and-beer hot. Tired as she
was she grasped her little girl by the hand, and plunging in at the
botto