mistake. Ever
look over these maps? This was the battle of--"

A door opened and a light head was thrust out.

"Now, d-dad, you hush this minute! You've told him that over and over.
Sandy's my company. Come in here, Sandy."

A few moments later there was a moving of chairs, and Annette's voice
was counting, "One, two, three; one, two, three," while Sandy went
through violent contortions in his efforts to waltz. He had his
tongue firmly between his teeth and his eyes fixed on vacancy as he
revolved in furniture--destroying circles about the small parlor.

"That isn't right," cried Annette. "You've lost the time. You d-dance
with the chair, Sandy, and I'll p-play the p-piano."

"No, you don't!" he cried. "I'll dance with you and put the chair at
the piano, but I'll dance with no chair."

Annette sank, laughing and exhausted, upon the sofa and looked up at
him hopelessly. Her hair had tumbled down, making her look more like a
child than ever.

"You are so b-big," she said; "and you've got so m-many feet!"

"The more of me to love ye."

"I wonder if you d-do?" She put her chin on her palms, looking at him
sidewise.

"Don't ye do that again!" he cried. "Haven't I passed ye the warning
never to look at me when you fix your mouth like that?"

She tried to call him a goose, though she knew that _g_'s were fatal.

A moment later she sat at one end of the sofa in pretended dudgeon,
while Sandy tried to make his peace from the other.

"May the lightning strike me dead if I ever do it again without the
asking! I'll be good now--honest to goodness, Nettie. I'll shut me
eyes when you take the hurdles, and be blind to temptation. Won't ye
be putting me on about the hop now, and what I must do?"

Annette counted her fraternity pins and tried to look severe. She used
them in lieu of scalps, and they encircled her neck, fastened her
belt, and on state occasions even adorned her shoe-buckles.

"Well," she at last said, "to b-begin with, you must be nice to
everyb-body. You mustn't sit out more than one d-dance with one
g-girl, and you must b-break in on every dance I'm not sitting out."

"Break in? Sit out?" repeated Sandy, realizing that the intricacies
of society are manifold.

"Of course," said his mentor. "Whenever you see the g-girl you like
dancing with any one else, you just p-put your hand on the man's
shoulder, and then she d-dances with you."

"And will they all stop for me?" cried Sandy, not understanding