nder their mother's eye,--for Rachel could be firm
in a case of conscience,--was more improving than the frivolity of
Slocum's barn.

"Mother," called Dorothy, looking in at the kitchen window, where
Rachel was stooping over the embers in the fireplace, to light a
bedroom candle, "I want to speak to thee."

Rachel came to the window, screening the candle with her hand.

"Will thee trust _me_ to look at the dancing a little while? It is so
very near."

"Why, Dorothy, does thee _want_ to?"

"Yes, mother, I believe I do. I've never seen a dance in my life. It
cannot ruin me to look just once."

Rachel stood puzzled.

"Thee's old enough to judge for thyself, Dorothy. But, my child, do not
tamper with thy inclinations through heedless curiosity. Thee knows
thee's more impulsive than I could wish--for thy own peace."

"I'll be very careful, mother. If I feel in the _least_ wicked I will
not look."

She kissed her mother's hand, which rested on the window-sill. Rachel
did not like the kiss, or Dorothy's brilliant eyes and flushed cheeks,
as the candle revealed them like a fair picture painted on the
darkness. She hesitated, and Dorothy sped away up the lane with old
John lagging at his halter.

Was it the music growing nearer that quickened her breathing, or only
the closeness of the night, shut in between the wild grape-vine
curtains, swung from one dark cedar column to another? She caught the
sweet-brier breath as she hurried by, and now, a loop in the leafy
curtain revealed the pond lying black in a hollow of the hills, with a
whole heaven of stars reflected in it. Old John stumbled along over the
stones, cropping the grass as he went. Dorothy tugged at his halter and
urged him on to the head of the lane where two farm-gates stood at
right angles. One of them was open, and a number of horses were
tethered in a row along the fence within. They whinneyed a cheerful
greeting to John as Dorothy slipped his halter and shut him into the
field adjoining. Now should she walk into temptation with her eyes and
ears open? The gate stood wide, with only one field of perfumed
meadow-grass between her and the lights and music of Slocum's barn! The
sound of revelry by night could hardly have taken a more innocent form
than this rustic dancing of neighbors after a "raisin' bee," but had it
been the rout of Comus and his crew, and Dorothy the Lady Una,
trembling near, her heart could hardly have throbbed more thickly as
she cr