he last to discover her niggardliness. But the round
young man was at least vigorous enough--too much so, when his knees
collided with Alice's--and he was too sturdy to be thrown off his feet,
himself, or to allow his partner to fall when he tripped her. He held
her up valiantly, and continued to beat a path through the crowd of
other dancers by main force.

He paid no attention to anything suggested by the efforts of the
musicians, and appeared to be unaware that there should have been some
connection between what they were doing and what he was doing; but he
may have listened to other music of his own, for his expression was of
high content; he seemed to feel no doubt whatever that he was dancing.
Alice kept as far away from him as under the circumstances she could;
and when they stopped she glanced down, and found the execution of
unseen manoeuvres, within the protection of her skirt, helpful to one of
her insteps and to the toes of both of her slippers.

Her cheery partner was paddling his rosy brows with a fine handkerchief.
"That was great!" he said. "Let's go out and sit in the corridor;
they've got some comfortable chairs out there."

"Well--let's not," she returned. "I believe I'd rather stay in here and
look at the crowd."

"No; that isn't it," he said, chiding her with a waggish forefinger.
"You think if you go out there you'll miss a chance of someone else
asking you for the next dance, and so you'll have to give it to me."

"How absurd!" Then, after a look about her that revealed nothing
encouraging, she added graciously, "You can have the next if you want
it."

"Great!" he exclaimed, mechanically. "Now let's get out of here--out of
THIS room, anyhow."

"Why? What's the matter with----"

"My mother," Mr. Dowling explained. "But don't look at her. She keeps
motioning me to come and see after Ella, and I'm simply NOT going to do
it, you see!"

Alice laughed. "I don't believe it's so much that," she said, and
consented to walk with him to a point in the next room from which Mrs.
Dowling's continuous signalling could not be seen. "Your mother hates
me."

"Oh, no; I wouldn't say that. No, she don't," he protested, innocently.
"She don't know you more than just to speak to, you see. So how could
she?"

"Well, she does. I can tell."

A frown appeared upon his rounded brow. "No; I'll tell you the way she
feels. It's like this: Ella isn't TOO popular, you know--it's hard to
see why, because she's a