airs.
This dreadful menace had the desired effect. He knew that I would not
scruple to fulfil it; and at the same time that it made him surrender it
also provoked him with me to a degree which gave his eyes and cheeks
as fine a glow as I could have wished for the purpose of a favorable
impression. The stimulus of wrath was good for him, and there was little
tremor in his knees when he descended the stairs. Well-a-day--so Daniel
and Billy were rivals!

The latter gentleman met us at the foot of the staircase.

"Oh, there you are, Daniel!" said he, cheerily. "I was just going to
look for you and Uncle Teddy. We wanted you for the dances. We have
had the Lancers twice and three round dances; and I danced the second
Lancers with Lottie. Now we're going to play some games to amuse the
children, you know," he added loftily with the adult gesture of pointing
his thumb over his shoulder at the extension room. "Lottie's going to
play, too, so will you and Daniel, won't you, uncle? Oh, here comes
Lottie now! This is my brother, Miss Pilgrim; let me introduce him to
you. I'm sure you'll like him. There's nothing he don't know."

Miss Pilgrim had just come to the newel post of the staircase, and when
she looked into Daniel's face blushed like the red, red rose, losing her
self-possession perceptibly more than Daniel.

The courage of weak warriors and timid gallants mounts as the opposite
party's falls, and Daniel made out to say, in a firm tone, that it was
long since he had enjoyed the pleasure of meeting Miss Pilgrim.

"Not since Mrs. Cramcroud's last sociable, I think," replied Miss
Pilgrim, her cheeks and eyes still playing the telltale.

"Oho! so you don't want any introduction," exclaimed Master Billy. I
didn't know you knew each other, Lottie."

"I have met Mr. Lovegrove in society. Shall we go and join in the
plays?"

"To be sure we shall!" cried Billy. "You needn't mind; all the grown
people are going to."

On entering the parlor we found it as he had said. The guests being
almost all well acquainted with each other, at the solicitation of
jolly little Mrs. Bloomingal, Sister Lu had consented to make a pleasant
Christmas kind of time of it, in which everybody was permitted to be
young again and romp with the rompiest. We played Blindman's-buff till
we tired of that--Daniel, to Lu's great delight, coming out splendidly
as Blindman, and evincing such "cheek" in the style he hunted down and
caught the ladies, as sa