nt and in both
looks and manner befitted their best ideals. True, his accent had not
that subtle gloze, that consonantal softness and intonation that mark
the Southron, but he was a Southron for all that, and one of themselves.

The queen's curtsey was the signal for the music, which throbbed
suddenly into a march, and she stepped down beside him. Couple after
couple, knights and ladies, ranged behind them, till the twenty-four
stood ready for the royal quadrille. It was the old-fashioned lancers,
but the deliberate strain lent the familiar measures something of the
stately effect of the minuet. The rhythmic waves alternately bore
Shirley to his arms and whisked her away, for fleeting hand-touch of
this or that demure or laughing maid, giving him glimpses of the seated
rows by the walls, of flower vistas, of open windows beyond which peered
shining black faces delightedly watching.

Quadrilles were not invented as aids to conversation, and John Valiant's
and Shirley's was necessarily limited. "The decorations are simply
delicious!" she said as they faced each other briefly. "How _did_ you
manage it?"

"Home talent with a vengeance. Uncle Jefferson and I did it with our
little hatchets. But the roses--"

They were swooped apart and Shirley found herself curtseying to Chilly
Lusk. "More than queen!" he said under his breath. "I had my heart set
on naming you to-day. I reckon I've lost my rabbit-foot!"

Opposite, in the turn, Betty Page had slipped her dainty hand into John
Valiant's. "Ah haven't seen such a lovely dance for _yeahs_!" she
sighed. "Isn't Shirley too sweet? If Ah had hair like hers, Ah wouldn't
speak to a soul on earth!"

The exigencies of the figure gave no space for answer, and presently,
after certain labyrinthine evolutions, Shirley's eyes were gazing into
his again. "How adorably you look!" he whispered, as he bowed over her
hand. "How does it feel to be a queen?"

"This little head was never made to wear a crown," she laughed. "Queens
should be regal. Miss Fargo would have--"

The music swept the rest away, but not the look of blinding reproach he
gave her that made her heart throb wildly as she glided on.

* * * * *

The last note of the quadrille slipped into a waltz dreamily slow, and
Valiant put his arm about Shirley and they floated away. Once before,
in the moonlighted garden at Rosewood, she had lain in his arms for
one brief instant; then she had seeme