ver hold a
girl too close. We hate it. Yes. That's it. Now, mamma. Again. One, two,
three. One, two, three."

This was heavenly, Peter thought, and could have wept over the
shortness, as it seemed to him, of this part of the lesson.

But it ended, and Leonore said: "If you'll practice that in your room,
with a bolster, you'll get on very fast."

"I always make haste slowly," said Peter, not taking to the bolster idea
at all kindly. "Probably you can find time to-morrow for another lesson,
and I'll learn much quicker with you."

"I'll see."

"And will you give me some waltzes at the dances?"

"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Leonore. "You shall have the dances
the other men don't ask of me. But you don't dance well enough, in case
I can get a better partner. I love valsing too much to waste one with a
poor dancer."

A moment before Peter thought waltzing the most exquisite pleasure the
world contained. But he suddenly changed his mind, and concluded it was
odious.

"Nevertheless," he decided, "I will learn how."

CHAPTER LI.

THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.

Peter had his ride the next morning, and had a very interested listener
to his account of that dinner. The listener, speaking from vast
political knowledge, told him at the end. "You did just right. I
thoroughly approve of you."

"That takes a great worry off my mind," said Peter soberly. "I was
afraid, since we were to be such friends, and you wanted my help in the
whirligig this winter, that you might not like my possibly having to
live in Albany."

"Can't you live in New York?" said Leonore, looking horrified.

"No."

"Then I don't like it at all," said Leonore. "It's no good having
friends if they don't live near one."

"That's what I think," said Peter. "I suppose I couldn't tempt you to
come and keep house for me?"

"Now I must snub him," thought Leonore. "No," she said, "It will be bad
enough to do that five years from now, for the man I love." She looked
out from under her eyelashes to see if her blow had been fatal, and
concluded from the glumness in Peter's face, that she really had been
too cruel. So she added: "But you may give me a ball, and we'll all come
up and stay a week with you."

Peter relaxed a little, but he said dolefully, "I don't know what I
shall do. I shall be in such need of your advice in politics and
housekeeping."

"Well," said Leonore, "if you really find that you can't get on without
help, we'll make it