nendurable.

"Skib, skib, skibble--de--de--dosh!"

Again the deep and sweeping courtesy and chanting of the weird words. The
final "dosh!" held, in its low, fierce tone, all the significance of
abject adoration. With that "dosh" had the child Priscilla wooed the
favour and recognition of the god. It was a triumph of appeal.

And then the dance began--the wild, fantastic steps full of grace and joy
and the fury and passion of youth. Round and round spun the slight form,
with arms over head or spread wide. The red cape floated, rising and
falling; the uplifted face changed with every moment's flitting thought.
It was a beautiful thing, that dance, grotesque, pagan, and yet divine,
and through it all, panting and pulsing, sounded the strange,
incomprehensible words:

"Skib, skib, skibble--de--de--dosh!"

While the rite was at high tide a young fellow, lying prone under a
clump of trees beyond the open space, looked on, first in amaze mingled
with amusement, and then with delight and admiration. He had never
seen anything at once so heathenish and so exquisite. To one hampered
and restricted as he was in bodily freedom, the absolute grace was
marvellous, but the uncanny words and the girl's apparent seriousness
gave a touch of unreality to the scene. Presently, from sheer inability
to further control himself, the looker-on gave a laugh that rent the
stillness of the afternoon like a cruel shock.

Priscilla, horrified, paused in the midst of a wild whirl and listened,
her eyes dilating, her nostrils twitching. She waited for another burst
that would make her understand.

Having given vent to that one peal of mirth, Richard Travers pulled
himself to a sitting position, and, by so doing, presented his head and
shoulders to the indignant eyes of Priscilla Glenn.

"Oh!" cried she; "how dare you!"

And now Travers got rather painfully upon his feet, and, with fiddle
under one arm and book under the other, came forward into the open and
inclined his uncovered head. He was twenty then, fair and handsome, and
in his gray eyes shone that kindliness that was doomed later on to bring
him so much that was both evil and good.

"I beg your pardon. I did not know I was on sacred ground. I just
happened here, you see, and I could not help the laugh; it was the only
compliment I could pay for anything so lovely--so utterly lovely."

Priscilla melted at once and fear fled. Not for an instant did she
connect this handsome fellow w