m, and floated out through the open window. As some
one closed the window in his face, Lem followed the other loungers into
the house. The men had all made a stampede for the kitchen; the women
sat on chairs and benches against the wall, some of them leaning their
heads back wearily, while others fanned themselves and their neighbors
with vigor, not relaxing for a moment the somewhat strained vivacity
which they felt that the occasion demanded. Bub Quinn's Aggy--no one
knew her last name--sat a little apart from the others. She was
apparently absorbed in the contemplation of her pocket-handkerchief, a
piece of coarse finery, which she held by the exact middle, flirting it
across her face in lieu of the fan, which had slid to the floor.

Lem paused on his way to the kitchen, and observed her closely. He saw
the pink of her neck take on a deeper tinge, and at the same moment Bub
Quinn and Joe brushed past him and stood before the girl, each offering
her a plate on which reposed two sandwiches and a section of cucumber
pickle.

This was Aggy's opportunity. She shrugged her shoulders, which were
encased in red velveteen; she lifted and then dropped her eyes, poising
her head first on one side and then on the other; she clasped her hands
and wrinkled her forehead. Lem felt as though he were watching the
capricious sparks which mark the progress of a slow match toward a
powder-train. Bub Quinn, meanwhile, stood rooted before the girl, while
Joe, having possessed himself of the fallen fan, met her coquetry with
blandishments of the most undisguised nature. At length, hesitatingly,
deprecatingly, she took Quinn's plate, but at the same time she moved
along on the bench and offered Joe a seat. He promptly took it, and
Quinn went away with the calmness of a silently gathering thunder-cloud.

Quinn did not dance again that night; he withdrew to the piazza, where
he kept guard at the window hour after hour. Joe danced with no one but
Aggy, and sat beside her between whiles. Lem wandered about, trying not
to watch Quinn. He knew his brother too well to remonstrate with him
again by so much as a look.

As the night wore on, the hilarity of the company increased, nothing
daunted by the sight of a man lying here and there under a bench with a
telltale black bottle protruding from his pocket. When the favorite
figure of the "Bird in the Cage" was danced, and the caller-out shouted,
"Bird flies out, and the crow flies in," everybody i