ting. He felt like a man who is walking,
lost in thought, through the streets on a winter evening, and who
suddenly discovers that he has got upon a patch of slippery ice. There
was nothing for it but to keep up and go ahead; so, with the courage
of despair, he said "If I knew--or dared to hope--that one of the
ladies--no--that the lady I wanted to dance with--that she would care
to--hm--that she would dance with me, then--then--" he could get no
further, and after saying "then" two or three times over, he came to a
stand-still.

"You could ask her," said the fair one.

Her bracelet had come unfastened, and its clasp was so stiff that she
had to bend right forward and pinch it so hard that she became quite red
in the face, in order to fasten it again.

"Would you, for example, dance with me?" Ola's brain was swimming.

"Why not?" she answered. She stood pressing the point of her shoe into a
crack in the floor.

"We're to have a party at the Parsonage on Friday--would you give me a
dance then?"

"With pleasure; which would you like?" she answered, trying her best to
assume a "society" manner.

"A quadrille?" said Ola; thinking: "Quadrilles are so long."

"The second quadrille is disengaged," answered the lady.

"And a galop?"

"Yes, thank you; the first galop," she replied, with a little
hesitation.

"And a polka?"

"No, no! no more," cried the fair one, looking at Ola with alarm.

At the same moment, Hans came rushing along at full speed. "Oh, how
lucky I am to find you!--but in what company!"

Thereupon he took possession of the fair one in his amiable fashion, and
drew her away with him to find her wraps and join the others.

"A quadrille and a galop; but no more--so so! so so!" repeated Cousin
Ola. He stood as though rooted to the spot. At last he became aware
that he was alone. He hastily seized a hat, slunk out by the back way,
sneaked through the garden, and clambered with great difficulty over the
garden fence, not far from the gate which stood ajar.

He struck into the first foot-path through the fields, fixing his
eyes upon the Parsonage chimneys. He was vaguely conscious that he was
getting wet up to the knees in the long grass; but on the other hand, he
was not in the least aware that the Sheriff's old uniform cap, which he
had had the luck to snatch up in his haste, was waggling about upon his
head, until at last it came to rest when the long peak slipped down over
his ear.

"A quadril