ry willingly led the way into one of the more
empty apartments. What there was in this particular kind of dance which
excited her it might not be easy to guess; but those who looked in with
the old Doctor, on a former occasion, and saw her, will remember that she
was strangely carried away by it, and became almost fearful in the
vehemence of her passion. The sound of the castanets seemed to make her
alive all over. Dick knew well enough what the exhibition would be, and
was almost afraid of her at these moments; for it was like the dancing
mania of Eastern devotees, more than the ordinary light amusement of
joyous youth,--a convulsion of the body and the mind, rather than a
series of voluntary modulated motions.

Elsie rattled out the triple measure of a saraband. Her eyes began to
glitter more brilliantly, and her shape to undulate in freer curves.
Presently she noticed that Dick's look was fixed upon her necklace. His
face betrayed his curiosity; he was intent on solving the question, why
she always wore something about her neck. The chain of mosaics she had
on at that moment displaced itself at every step, and he was peering with
malignant, searching eagerness to see if an unsunned ring of fairer hue
than the rest of the surface, or any less easily explained peculiarity,
were hidden by her ornaments.

She stopped suddenly, caught the chain of mosaics and settled it hastily
in its place, flung down her castanets, drew herself back, and stood
looking at him, with her head a little on one side, and her eyes
narrowing in the way he had known so long and well.

"What is the matter, Cousin Elsie? What do you stop for?" he said.

Elsie did not answer, but kept her eyes on him, full of malicious light.
The jealousy which lay covered up under his surface-thoughts took this
opportunity to break out.

"You would n't act so, if you were dancing with Mr. Langdon,--would you,
Elsie?" he asked.

It was with some effort that he looked steadily at her to see the effect
of his question.

Elsie colored,--not much, but still perceptibly. Dick could not remember
that he had ever seen her show this mark of emotion before, in all his
experience of her fitful changes of mood. It had a singular depth of
significance, therefore, for him; he knew how hardly her color came.
Blushing means nothing, in some persons; in others, it betrays a profound
inward agitation,--a perturbation of the feelings far more trying than
the passio