e looked around and endeavoured to give, by a forcible gaze of
self-sympathy, some faint idea of the truth.

Mrs. Dewy formed one of the next couple.

"Yes," she said, in an auxiliary tone, "Reuben always was such a hot
man."

Mrs. Penny implied the species of sympathy that such a class of
affliction required, by trying to smile and to look grieved at the same
time.

"If he only walk round the garden of a Sunday morning, his shirt-collar
is as limp as no starch at all," continued Mrs. Dewy, her countenance
lapsing parenthetically into a housewifely expression of concern at the
reminiscence.

"Come, come, you women-folk; 'tis hands across--come, come!" said the
tranter; and the conversation ceased for the present.

CHAPTER VIII: THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY

Dick had at length secured Fancy for that most delightful of
country-dances, opening with six-hands-round.

"Before we begin," said the tranter, "my proposal is, that 'twould be a
right and proper plan for every mortal man in the dance to pull off his
jacket, considering the heat."

"Such low notions as you have, Reuben! Nothing but strip will go down
with you when you are a-dancing. Such a hot man as he is!"

"Well, now, look here, my sonnies," he argued to his wife, whom he often
addressed in the plural masculine for economy of epithet merely; "I don't
see that. You dance and get hot as fire; therefore you lighten your
clothes. Isn't that nature and reason for gentle and simple? If I strip
by myself and not necessary, 'tis rather pot-housey I own; but if we
stout chaps strip one and all, why, 'tis the native manners of the
country, which no man can gainsay? Hey--what did you say, my sonnies?"

"Strip we will!" said the three other heavy men who were in the dance;
and their coats were accordingly taken off and hung in the passage,
whence the four sufferers from heat soon reappeared, marching in close
column, with flapping shirt-sleeves, and having, as common to them all, a
general glance of being now a match for any man or dancer in England or
Ireland. Dick, fearing to lose ground in Fancy's good opinion, retained
his coat like the rest of the thinner men; and Mr. Shiner did the same
from superior knowledge.

And now a further phase of revelry had disclosed itself. It was the time
of night when a guest may write his name in the dust upon the tables and
chairs, and a bluish mist pervades the atmosphere, becoming a distinct
halo round the candle