he felt the
Squire's kindly hand on his shoulder, and heard his loud, jovial
voice in his ear. "Why, Jerome, my boy, what is the matter? Don't you
remember my daughter? Lucina, where are your manners?"

And then Lucina curtesied low, with her fair curls drooping forward
over her blushing face and neck, as pink as her corals, and Jerome
bowed and strove to say something, but he knew not what, and never
knew what he said, nor anybody else.

"'Twas the new clothes, boy," said the Squire in his ear. "By the
Lord Harry, 'twas much as ever I knew you myself at first! I took you
for an earl over from the old country. Lucina meant no harm. Go you
now and have a talk with her."

Jerome wondered anxiously afterwards if he had spoken properly to the
Squire's wife, to Mrs. Doctor Prescott, to Miss Camilla, and the
others--if he had looked, even, at anybody but Lucina. He remembered
the party as he might have remembered a kaleidoscope, of which only
one combination of form and color abided with him. He realized all
beside, as a broad effect with no detail. The card-playing and
punch-drinking in the other room, the preliminary tuning of fiddles
in the hall, the triumphant strains of a country dance, the weaving
of the figures, the gay voices of the village youths, who lost all
their abashedness as the evening went on, the supper, the table
gleaming with the white lights of silver and the rainbow lustre of
glass, the golden points of candles in the old candelabra, the fruity
and spicy odors of cake and wine, were all as a dimness and vagueness
of brilliance itself.

He did not know, even, that Lawrence Prescott was at Elmira's side
all the evening, and after his father arrived, and that Elmira danced
every time with him, and set people talking and Doctor Prescott
frowning. He knew only that he had followed Lucina about, and that
she seemed to encourage him with soft, leading smiles. That they sat
on a sofa in a corner, behind a door, and talked, that once they
stepped out on the stoop, and even strolled a little down the path,
under the trees, when she complained of the room being hot and close.
Then, without knowing whether he should do so or not, he bent towards
her, with his arm crooked, and she slipped her hand in it, and they
both trembled and were silent for a moment. He knew every word that
Lucina had spoken, and gave a thousand different meanings to each.
For the first time in his life, he tasted the sweets of praise from