ith the feet of the dancers
on the floor.

I had already detected in the tone of society toward Mr. and Mrs. Judah
Kobbe that they were awesome cosmopolites from some source. I now
learned that they were from a crowded mart called Machias. Captain
Pharo also told me mysteriously, in the pauses of his pipe, "'t they
was l'arneder 'n any fish 't swims;" so I gazed at them with wonder
from a distance, but did not much dream that it would be for me to
speak with them.

All along the edges of the floor were strewn children and babies,
comfortably wrapped and laid to sleep; the habit of the Basins, who had
no servants at home wherewith to leave them.

Notely Garrison had led the dance with Vesty; now she sat rocking her
baby, near Gurdon, who turned to them with a smile and swept a softer
strain now and then, as when he played them to sleep at home.

"Introduce me to the 'mezzo-tint' study yonder, the mediaeval picture
over there, rocking her infant, back of the fiddlers."

Notely slightly turned from his fellow-reveller, flushing.

"There are pretty girls enough here for you to dance with, Sid; she
would not like it. They are such simple people they would not
understand. She is married, you see."

"You danced with her."

"Oh, I am an old friend."

"Tar-a-ta! tar-a-ta!" went Captain Judah's trumpet, and I looked up to
see what new event its blast denoted. For, Captain Judah was a stage
driver, and having brought his horn along as a signal compliment to the
occasion, he was now conducting the first stages of the ball with those
loud flourishes and elegant social convenances which only those
sophisticated by extreme culture are supposed to understand.

"Tar-a-ta! tar-a-ta!"

I saw that Vesty and Gurdon had risen to dance together. Vesty wrapped
and laid her sleeping baby among the others, and Gurdon stepped out to
perform first that solitary jig or shuffle which is demanded of every
householder among the Basins, before he can lead his partner to the
dance.

Notely and the young man he had called "Sid" watched him shaking his
long legs, his heavy, noble face perfectly sincere and unembarrassed;
for was it not the ancient, honorable custom of the Basins?

"Stolid cart-horse, by Jove!" sneered Sid, casting a glowing glance at
Vesty, "for such a Venus!"

Notely did not like the tone. "There 's some stolid granite in my
quarry," he snarled softly; "but it 's everlasting good granite, all
the same, Sid."