ersal
and incessant; there were ten or twelve couple dancing on the earthen
floor of Mrs. Mehan's shop. The piper was playing those provocative
Irish tunes, which, like the fiddle in the German tale, compel the
hearers to dance whether they wish it or no; and they did dance
with a rapidity and energy which showed itself in the streams of
perspiration running down from the performers' faces. Not much to
their immediate comfort a huge fire was kept up on the hearth; but
the unnecessary heat thus produced was atoned for by the numerous
glasses of punch with which they were thereby enabled to regale
themselves, when for a moment they relaxed their labours.

This pleasant recreation began also to show its agreeable effects in
the increased intimacy of the partners and the spirit of the party.
All diffidence in standing up had ceased--and now the only difficulty
was for the aspirants to get room on which to make their complicated
steps; and oh, the precision, regularity, and energy of those
motions! Although the piper played with a rapidity which would have
convinced the uninitiated of the impossibility of dancing to the
time, every foot in the room fell to the notes of the music as surely
as though the movements of the whole set had been regulated by a
steam machine. And such movements as they were! Not only did the feet
keep time, but every limb and every muscle had each its own work, and
twisted, shook and twirled itself in perfect unison and measure, the
arms performed their figure with as much accuracy as the legs.

"Take a sup of punch now, Miss Tierney; shure you're fainting away
entirely for the want of a dhrop." The lady addressed was wiping,
with the tail of her gown, a face which showed the labour that had
been necessary to perform the feat of dancing down the whole company
to the tune of the "wind that shakes the barley," and was now leaning
against the wall, whilst her last partner was offering her punch made
on the half and half system: "Take a sup, Miss Tierney, then; shure
you're wanting it."

"Thank ye, Mr. Kelly, but I am afther taking a little jist now, and
the head's not sthrong with me afther dancing;" she took the tumbler,
however. "Faix, Mr. Kelly, but it's yourself can make a tumbler of
punch with any man."

"'Deed then there's no sperrits in it at all--only a thrifle to take
the wakeness off the water. Come, Miss Tierney, you didn't take
what'd baptize a babby."

"It'd be a big babby then; one