e so bright
with triumph that he had to say:

"Of course that proves nothing about dancing. It doesn't say that the
Shiloh girls made good wives."

Prue had the impudence to add, "And it doesn't say that the sons of
Benjamin were good dancers."

Her father silenced her with a scowl of horror. Then he made a long
prayer, directed more at his family than at the Lord. It apparently had
an equal effect on each. After a hymn had been mumbled through the
family dispersed.

Prue lingered just long enough to capture the Bible and carry it off to
her room in a double embrace. Serina and William tried to be glad to
see her sudden interest, but they were a little afraid of her exact
motive.

She made no noise at all and did not come down in time to help get
supper--the sad, cold supper of a Sunday evening. She slipped into the
dining-room just before the family was called. Papa found at his plate a
neat little stack of cards, bearing each a carefully lettered legend in
Prue's writing. He picked them up, glanced at them, and flushed.

"I dare you to read them," said Prue.

So he read: "'To every thing there is a season, and a time to every
purpose under the heaven ... a time to mourn and a time to dance.... He
hath made every thing beautiful in his time.' Ecclesiastes iii.

"'Let them praise his name in the dance ... for the Lord taketh pleasure
in his people.... Praise him with the timbrel and dance.... Praise him
upon the loud cymbals.' Psalms cxlix, cl.

"'O virgin of Israel ... thou shalt go forth in the dances of them that
make merry.... Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young
men and old together.' Jeremiah xxxi.

"'We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced.' Matthew xi: 17.

"'Michal, Saul's daughter, looked through a window, and saw King David
leaping and dancing before the Lord; and she despised him in her
heart.... Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the
day of her death.' II Samuel vi: 16, 23."

Papa did not fall back upon the Shakesperean defense that the devil can
quote Scripture to his purpose. He choked a little and filled his hand
with the apple-butter he was spreading on his cold biscuit. Then he
said:

"It's not that I don't believe in dancing. I don't say all dances are
immor'l."

"You better not," said Serina, darkly. "You met me at a dance. We used
to dance all the time till you got so's you wouldn't take me to parties
any more. And you got so clumsy an