lost among the faggots and brushwood in the out-house.

'When we had danced a few hours, and the crowns of we taller men were
swelling into lumps with bumping the beams of the ceiling, the first
fiddler laid down his fiddle-bow, and said he should play no more, for he
wished to dance. And in another hour the second fiddler laid down his,
and said he wanted to dance too; so there was only the third fiddler
left, and he was a' old, veteran man, very weak in the wrist. However,
he managed to keep up a faltering tweedle-dee; but there being no chair
in the room, and his knees being as weak as his wrists, he was obliged to
sit upon as much of the little corner-table as projected beyond the
corner-cupboard fixed over it, which was not a very wide seat for a man
advanced in years.

'Among those who danced most continually were the two engaged couples, as
was natural to their situation. Each pair was very well matched, and
very unlike the other. James Hardcome's intended was called Emily Darth,
and both she and James were gentle, nice-minded, in-door people, fond of
a quiet life. Steve and his chosen, named Olive Pawle, were different;
they were of a more bustling nature, fond of racketing about and seeing
what was going on in the world. The two couples had arranged to get
married on the same day, and that not long thence; Tony's wedding being a
sort of stimulant, as is often the case; I've noticed it professionally
many times.

'They danced with such a will as only young people in that stage of
courtship can dance; and it happened that as the evening wore on James
had for his partner Stephen's plighted one, Olive, at the same time that
Stephen was dancing with James's Emily. It was noticed that in spite o'
the exchange the young men seemed to enjoy the dance no less than before.
By and by they were treading another tune in the same changed order as we
had noticed earlier, and though at first each one had held the other's
mistress strictly at half-arm's length, lest there should be shown any
objection to too close quarters by the lady's proper man, as time passed
there was a little more closeness between 'em; and presently a little
more closeness still.

'The later it got the more did each of the two cousins dance with the
wrong young girl, and the tighter did he hold her to his side as he
whirled her round; and, what was very remarkable, neither seemed to mind
what the other was doing. The party began to draw towar