at the hotel because their own house is too small for so
many people at once. Everyone has their large parties there nowadays.
If you are going to believe everything your father says, you'll be
having a very hard time. And if he keeps on talking this way, I'll have
to send him out. You mustn't pay so much attention to him."

"Nice, wifely speech, that," observed Ross.

But Arethusa had glimpsed the laughter in his quizzical dark eyes. She
realized now he had been teasing, so she turned clear away from him to
give all her attention to Elinor, who could be more trusted.

"Do you know how to dance, dear?" asked Elinor.

"Some," replied Arethusa, "Timothy taught me down in the barn. Aunt
'Liza says dancing is very wicked," (Miss Eliza had a truly deep and
honest horror of round dances). "But Timothy says it isn't a bit wrong,
and I just _love_ it! She doesn't know," added almost confidentially,
"that Timothy ever showed me how."

"'Tis just as well, I suppose," murmured Ross.

Arethusa had proved an apt pupil to Timothy's friendly instructions
when he had come home from college and passed on his acquirements in
the art terpsichorean. The lessons had taken place in the central,
biggest space in the barn, as she had said, with Timothy humming an
accompaniment until breathless, and then she taking up the tune in her
turn. This little taste of the joys of dancing had made her long for
more. She failed to see how anything that made for such pure and
unadulterated delight could be so wicked as Miss Eliza insisted that it
was.

"I'm glad you know something about it," said Elinor, really relieved.
"I was afraid perhaps you didn't, and you would hardly have the time to
learn. And, Arethusa dearest," tactfully feeling her way, fearing to
spoil the girl's innocent happiness in the garment, "was that white
dress you wore last night your very best?"

"Yes, ma'am." The eager face lighted still more. "And it's the lowest
necked dress I ever did have, and it has the shortest sleeves! They're
nearly up to my elbow. Aunt 'Liza didn't want it made that way, so low,
nor so thin, either; because she said I wouldn't be able to wear my
underwear with it, and she's afraid it's dangerous for me to take it
off. But I rolled it up last night and in at the neck, and it didn't
show very much. Did it?"

Elinor and Ross were almost equally affected by this speech.

"Shades of the summer of seventy-six!" was his rather inappropriate
exclamati