ossed the dewy meadow. A young maple stood within ten rods of the
barn, and here she crouched in shadow.

The great doors stood wide open, and lanterns were hung from the beams
lighting the space between the mows, where a dance was set, with youths
and maidens in two long rows. The fiddlers sat on barrel-heads near the
door; a lantern hanging just behind projected their shadows across the
square of light on the trodden space in front where they executed a
grotesque pantomime, keeping time to the music with spectral wavings
and noddings. The dancers were Dorothy's young neighbors, whom she had
known and yet not known all her life, but they had the strangeness of
familiar faces seen suddenly in some fantastic dream.

Surely that was Nancy Slocum, in the bright pink gown, heading the line
of girls, and that was Luke Jordan's sunburnt profile leaning from his
place to pluck a straw from the mow behind him. They were marching now,
and the measured tramp of feet, keeping solid time to the fiddles, set
a strange tumult vibrating in Dorothy's blood; and now it stopped with
a thrill as she recognized that Evesham was there marching with the
young men, and that his peer was not among them. The perception of his
difference came to her with a vivid shock. He was coming forward now,
with his light, firm step, formidable in evening dress, and with a
smile of subtle triumph in his eyes, to meet Nancy Slocum, in the
bright pink gown; Dorothy felt she hated pink, of all the colors her
faith had abjured. She could see, in spite of the obnoxious gown, that
Nancy was very pretty. He was taking her first by the right hand, then
by the left, and turning her gayly about;--and now they were meeting
again, for the fourth or fifth time, in the centre of the barn, with
all eyes upon them, and the music lingered while Nancy, holding out her
pink petticoats, coyly revolved around him. Then began a mysterious
turning, and clasping of hands, and weaving of Nancy's pink frock and
Evesham's dark blue coat and white breeches in and out of the line of
figures, until they met at the door, and taking each other by both
hands, swept with a joyous measure to the head of the barn. Dorothy
gave a little choking sigh.

What a senseless whirl it was! But she was thrilling with a new and
strange excitement, too near the edge of pain to be long endured as a
pleasure. If this were the influence of dancing, she did not wonder so
much at her father's scruples,--and