es eight people, but you can have
two or three at the same time. They dance in figures. And, oh, it is
just delightful! I _do_ wonder if it is wrong?"

"What would make it wrong?" asked Doris gravely.

"That's what puzzles me. A great many people think it right and send
their children to dancing-school. On all great occasions there seems to
be dancing. It is stepping and floating around gracefully. You think of
swallows flying and flowers swinging and grass waving in the summer
sun."

"But if there is so much of it in the world, and if God made the world
gay and glad and rejoicing and full of butterflies and birds and ever so
many things that don't do any real work but just have a lovely time----"

Doris' wide-open eyes questioned her companion.

"They haven't any souls. I don't know." Betty shook her head. "Let's ask
father about it to-night. When you are little you play tag and
puss-in-the-corner and other things, and run about full of fun. Dancing
is more orderly and refined. And there's the delicious music! All the
young men were so nice and polite,--so kind of elegant,--and it makes
you feel of greater consequence. I don't mean vain, only as if it was
worth while to behave prettily. It's like the parlor and the kitchen.
You don't take your washing and scrubbing and scouring in the parlor,
though that work is all necessary. So there are two sides to life. And
my side just now is getting supper, while your side is studying tables.
Oh, I do wonder if you will ever get to know them!"

Doris sighed. She would so much rather talk about the party.

"And your frock was--pretty?" she ventured timidly.

"All the girls thought it lovely. And I told them it was a gift from my
little cousin, who came from old Boston--and they were so interested in
you. They thought Doris a beautiful name, but Sally said the family name
ought to be grander to go with it. But Adams is a fine old name,
too--the first name that was ever given. There was only one man then,
and when there came to be such hosts of them they tacked the 's' on to
make it a noun of multitude."

"Did they really? Some of the children are learning about nouns. Oh,
dear, how much there is to learn!" said the little girl with a sigh.

Betty went at her supper. People ate three good stout meals in those
days. It made a deal of cooking. It made a stout race of people as well,
and one heard very little about nerves and indigestion. Betty was
getting to be quite a pra