long like a short-winged bird at her
brother's side. "Please walk faster, Jerome," said she.

"We'll have time enough there," returned Jerome, stepping high and
gingerly, lest he soil his nicely blacked shoes.

"It will be dreadful to go in late and have them all looking at us,
Jerome."

"What if they do look at us," Jerome argued, manfully, but he was in
reality himself full of nervous tremors. Sometimes, to a soul with a
broad outlook and large grasp, the great stresses of life are not as
intimidating as its small and deceitful amenities.

When they reached Squire Merritt's house and saw all the windows,
parallelograms of golden light, shining through the thick growth of
trees, his hands and feet were cold, his heart beat hard. "I'm acting
like a girl," he thought, indignantly, straightened himself, and
marched on to the front door, as if it were the postern of a
fortress.

But Elmira caught her brother by the long, blue coat-tail, and
brought him to a stand.

"Oh, Jerome," she whispered, "there are so many there, and we are so
late, I'm afraid to go in."

"What are you afraid of?" demanded Jerome, with a rustic brusqueness
which was foreign to him. "Come along." He pulled his coat away and
strode on, and Elmira had to follow.

The front door of Squire Merritt's house stood open into the hall the
night was so warm, some girls in white were coming down the wide
spiral of stair within, pressing softly together like scared white
doves, in silence save for the rustle of their starched skirts. From
the great rooms on either side of the hall, however, came the murmur
of conversation, with now and then a silvery break of laughter, like
a sudden cascade in an even current.

Flower-decked heads and silken-gleaming shoulders passed between the
windows and the light, outlining vividly every line and angle and
curve--the keen cut of profiles, the scallops of perked-up lace, the
sharp dove-tails of ribbons. Before one window was upreared the great
back and head of a man, still as a statue, yet with the persistency
of stillness, of life.

That dogged stiffness, which betrays the utter self-abasement of
resticity in fine company, was evident in his pose, even to one
coming up the path. This party at Squire Merritt's was democratic,
including many whose only experiences in social gatherings of their
neighbors had come through daily labor and worship. All the young
people in Upham had been invited; the Squire's three bo