e git into a set. They're all full here." Frank appeared in
the doorway, alone, and lifted a long high arm. "_One_ couple needed in
the far room!" he proclaimed with stentorian dignity and seriousness.

"Here we are!" shouted old Mrs. Powers, scrambling her way through the
crowd, and pulling Vincent after her. He could see now that the couples
about him were indeed in their places, hand in hand, facing each other,
gravely elate and confident. The younger ones were swinging their bodies
slightly, in time to the sharply marked beat of the fiddle, and in the
older ones, the pulse throbbed almost visibly as they waited.

He felt the breath of pines on him, resinous, penetrating, stimulating.
He was in a small, square room with a low ceiling, dense and green with
pine-boughs, fastened to the walls. The odor was as strange an
accompaniment to dancing as was that furiously whirling primitive
iteration of the fiddle.

"Over here!" cried Mrs. Powers, dragging masterfully at her partner. She
gave a sigh of satisfaction, caught at his hand and held it high. "All
ready, Frank," she said.

Facing them, near the doorway stood Frank and Nelly, their heads up,
Nelly's small high-heeled shoe thrust forward, their clasped hands held
high. Vincent felt his blood move more quickly at the spectacle they
made. On one side stood Marise Crittenden, her fingers clasped by the
huge knotted hand of 'Gene Powers, and on the other was rounded, rosy
old Mr. Bayweather holding by the hand the oldest Powers child, a pretty
blonde girl of twelve.

Frank's voice pealed out above the jig-jig-jigging of the fiddle.
"_Salute_ your partners!"

Vincent had a qualm of a feeling he thought he had left behind him with
his boyhood, real embarrassment, fear of appearing at a disadvantage.
What in the world did their antiquated lingo _mean?_ Was he to _kiss_
that old woman?

Mrs. Powers said reassuringly, "Don't you worry. Just do what the others
do."

As she spoke she was holding out her skirts and dipping to a courtesy. A
little later, he caught at the idea and sketched a bow such as to his
astonishment he saw the other men executing. Was he in old Versailles or
Vermont?

He felt his hand seized by the old woman's. Such a hearty zest was in
her every action that he looked at her amazed.

"Balance to the corners, right!" chanted Frank, sending his voice out
like a bugle so that it might be heard in all the rooms.

With perfect precision, and poise,