And after all the rehearsing we've done at Aunt Sally's the cherry-tree
figure absolutely has to have him," said Allen. "Maybe I'd better send a
scout to look him up or run over to the State House myself."

"Oh, he'll be here," murmured Sylvia.

Dan had undoubtedly intended to appear early at the dance, and she
wondered whether his delay might not be due to the crisis in his
relations with Bassett of which the politician had hinted. As she ran
off with Allen to make sure the apparatus for the german was in order,
she wished Bassett had not spoken to her of Harwood.

Sylvia and Allen had despaired of Dan when at a quarter of twelve he
appeared. He met their reproaches cheerfully, and airily explained his
delay.

"State's business! Can you imagine me fresh from Richelieu's cabinet,
with a trail of dead horses on the road behind me? In plain prose I
didn't get home to dress until eleven, and the snow makes it hard
going."

He had dressed with care nevertheless and had never looked better.
Sylvia sent Allen ahead to begin clearing the floor for the cotillion,
and followed more slowly with Harwood.

"I suppose," he remarked, half to himself, "that I really oughtn't to do
it."

"What--you hesitate now after keeping the stage waiting!"

"It may be a case for an understudy. There are reasons why."

"Then--you have done it?"

They were at the turn of the stair and Sylvia paused. He was conscious
of a quick catch in her breath. Her eyes met his for an instant
searchingly.

"Yes; I have done it," he answered, and looked at her wonderingly.

A moment later he had made his peace with Mrs. Owen and paid his
compliments to Mrs. Bassett at the favor table, heaped high with
beribboned hatchets and bunches of cherries for the first figure.

Morton Bassett had heard praise of his daughter from many lips, but he
watched her joyous course through the cherry-tree figure in the german
with an attention that was not wholly attributable to fatherly pride.
Harwood's white-gloved hand led her hither and thither through the
intricate maze; one must have been sadly lacking in the pictorial sense
not to have experienced a thrill of delight in a scene so animate with
grace, so touched with color. It was ungracious to question the
sincerity of those who pronounced Marian the belle of the ball when
Colonel Ramsay, the supreme authority in Hoosier pulchritude, declared
her to be the fairest rose in a rose-garden of girls. He said the sam