aracter had
somewhat changed of late years; but still, January after January, the
Cotillion Club continued to give its one yearly and important event
within these historic portals. And historic portals they truly were,
for the ancient hostelry went back long before the Civil War to trace
its beginnings. Dickens was said to have slept under its roof, on his
memorable visit to America; duels, in those days when such settlements
of affairs of honor were winked at by the law of the community, had not
only found the reasons for being duels within these walls, but had
actually been fought in that high-ceilinged old lobby. In one or two
places could still be seen the traces of bullet marks that had gone
wild. The most beautiful woman of her day in America had, in answer to
a laughing challenge that she do so, ridden her horse straight up those
broad front steps and into the dining-room. The stories in connection
with the old hotel were many and varied.

Its ball-room, unlike the ball-rooms in the newer hotels in town, was
on the second floor. It was popularly supposed to be built on springs
and had long been considered to be the best dancing floor in the South.

No one really remembered now who had first instituted the January
Cotillion; just what long ago leader of society had first had the idea.
But it was still kept up, just as it had been started, winter after
winter; and had so firmly established itself as the real social
tradition of Lewisburg that invitations to it were almost fought for,
and no one who had one, or could have one (saving Timothy) had ever
been known to decline it. Once a year the Lewisburg aristocracy left
its familiar haunts and betook itself to this old building by the
water's edge to spend an evening of gayety within its dingy walls.
There were other dances given here, it is true, by the Sons and
Daughters of the Morning, and the Pleasure Club, and the West End
Society; but they were frowned upon by the truly socially elect, not
one of whom would have wanted to be seen here by acquaintances as a
frivoler, except on the one consecrated evening of the year, the second
Tuesday in every January.

Arethusa had gathered all of this knowledge concerning the January
Cotillion, and she was quite properly impressed to have been invited to
attend.

The old ball-room had been made into fairyland for the Occasion, and as
Arethusa stood in between the tall fluted columns that flanked its
magnificent old doorw