put you in a front seat so you won't miss anything
and then Miss Judy can sit by you when she is not dancing. That's all
right, I'll get some of your church members to keep you company."

Colonel Crutcher conducted mother and daughter across the ballroom
and, much to the confusion of Mrs. Buck, placed them next to Miss Ann
Peyton. That lady was seated in solitary grandeur, Big Josh having
departed to look up other members of the family.

"Miss Peyton, this is a little friend of mine I want to introduce to
you, Miss Judith Buck, and her mother, Mrs. Buck."

Miss Ann bowed with what might be called gracious stiffness, and moved
her skirts a fraction of an inch to make room for Judith.

Mrs. Buck was thankful that some church friends were found by whom
she might sit and be as inconspicuous as possible. She would have been
frightened beyond words if she had been forced to sit by Miss Ann
Peyton. Not so Judith! The girl looked levelly into the old woman's
eyes and then sat down.

"I want to thank you for the toilet water you sent to me by my
servant. It was very kind of you," said Miss Ann.

"I loved to do it."

"Why did you?"

"I don't know. Perhaps because ever since I was a tiny little girl I
have watched you go driving by on the pike and I've always wanted to
give you a present. Sometimes I used to pick flowers and hide behind
the fence, thinking maybe I could stop your carriage and give them to
you, but I was too shy, and old Billy always looked so fierce--as
though he were taking the Queen to Windsor. But I used to make up
stories about you and your coach and now I am too big and old to make
up silly stories and no longer shy and hiding behind hedges, but I
kind of felt that the toilet water might be the essence of the flowers
I used to pick for you when I was a little girl--the ones you never
got."

"Ah, indeed!" was all Miss Ann said, but she sought the girl's hand
and held it a moment in the folds of her billowing lace dress.

Then the music started and the ball had begun and Major Fitch was
bowing low in front of Miss Ann, claiming the first quadrille, and
Colonel Crutcher was holding out his hands for Judith.

"Dance in the set with me," Miss Ann whispered to Judith, as though
they were girls together.

Of course nobody dances quadrilles in these jazz days, but the old men
had stipulated that the band from Louisville must know how to play for
quadrille and lancers and dusty old music had been unear