e was on the floor with the
first note Professor Trask struck, and she danced down the side of the
little hall, when the waltz was over and all the other couples had
seated themselves, as though the meter of the music had bewitched her
feet and they might nevermore walk soberly.

"Split--don't!" It was the shocked voice of her young chaperon.

"Sissy--don't!" mocked the mutinous Split.

Even after she took the seat beside Sissy, her heels were lifted and the
toes of her slippers were beating time. She sat there chattering to a
group of boys buzzing about her, upon whom her high spirits had the
effect that dance-music had upon herself.

"You're the prettiest girl I've seen since I left the city, Irene,"
patronizingly whispered the boy lately from San Francisco, whose
metropolitan elegances had dazzled the eyes of the mountain maidens.

"I wonder how many girls Will Morrow's said that to this afternoon!"
came like a sarcastic douche from Sissy, who conceived it to be a
chaperon's duty to take the conceit out of citified chaps.

Young Morrow turned to find a small woman in brown eying him
disdainfully.

"Well--well, I never said it to you, anyway," he retorted gallantly.

"Good reason why. You knew I wouldn't believe you," Sissy declared,
floundering in her anger.

"Neither would anybody else."

[Illustration:
"The Belle of the Afternoon"]

"Why? Because you said it? Didn't know you had such a reputation." Sissy
was recovering. "Never mind, Split," she added, heavily sarcastic and
assuming a comforting air that maddened Irene, who desired nothing more
than to impress her new suitor with the elegant gentility of her manner,
her family's, and all that was hers. "Just to have a boy from the city
even pretend to think you're good-looking is worth living for. Boys know
so much--in the city!" she concluded witheringly.

Mr. Morrow from San Francisco looked bewildered. He had merely paid what
he considered a very dashing compliment to one girl, when lo! the other
overwhelmed him with her contempt. He turned for consolation to Irene.

"I'll show you how they dance the two-step in the city," he said,
holding out his hand as the music began again.

But he had reckoned without that stern censor of sisterly manners,
Cecilia Madigan; that loyal Comstocker who resented the implication of
her town's inferiority, quite independent of the fact that the insult
was not addressed to her but to one who, apparently, w