nd the tears
actually rolling down over his well-formed cheeks, while some of the
more excitable young people almost fell in trances and rolled on the
floor in the extreme of their merriment. In fact, the assemblage was
becoming so tumultuous, that the scrape of Caesar's violin and the
forming of sets for a dance seemed necessary to restore the peace....

Uncle Bill would insist on leading out Aunt Lois, and the bright
colour rising to her thin cheeks brought back a fluttering image of
what might have been beauty in some fresh, early day. Ellery Davenport
insisted upon leading forth Miss Deborah Kittery, notwithstanding her
oft-repeated refusals and earnest protestations to the contrary. As to
Uncle Fliakim, he jumped and frisked and gyrated among the single
sisters and maiden aunts, whirling them into the dance as if he had
been the little black gentleman himself. With that true spirit of
Christian charity which marked all his actions, he invariably chose
out the homeliest and most neglected, and thus worthy Aunt Keziah,
dear old soul, was for a time made quite prominent by his
attentions....

Grandmother's face was radiant with satisfaction, as the wave of
joyousness crept up higher and higher round her, till the elders, who
stood keeping time with their heads and feet, began to tell one
another how they had danced with their sweethearts in good old days
gone by, and the elder women began to blush and bridle, and boast of
steps that they could take in their youth, till the music finally
subdued them, and into the dance they went.

"Well, well!" quoth my grandmother; "they're all at it so hearty I
don't see why I shouldn't try it myself." And into the Virginia reel
she went, amid screams of laughter from all the younger members of the
company.

But I assure you my grandmother was not a woman to be laughed at; for
whatever she once set on foot she "put through" with a sturdy energy
befitting a daughter of the Puritans.

"Why shouldn't I dance?" she said, when she arrived red and
resplendent at the bottom of the set. "Didn't Mr. Despondency and Miss
Muchafraid and Mr. Readytohalt all dance together in the 'Pilgrim's
Progress?'" And the minister in his ample flowing wig, and my lady in
her stiff brocade, gave to my grandmother a solemn twinkle of
approbation.

As nine o'clock struck, the whole scene dissolved and melted; for what
well-regulated village would think of carrying festivities beyond that
hour?

And