distance," I replied.

"I'll warrant!" said he, laughing, while Dolly shot me a wayward glance
from under her long lashes. "I'll warrant your eyes were fast on her
from beginning to end. Come, sir, confess!"

His big frame shook with the fun of it, for none in the colony could be
jollier than he on holiday occasions: and the group of ladies and
gentlemen beside him caught the infection, so that I was sore put to it.

"Will your Excellency confess likewise?" I demanded.

"So I will, Richard, and make patent to all the world that she hath the
remains of that shuttlecock, my heart."

Up gets his Excellency (for so we still called him) and makes Dolly a low
reverence, kissing the tips of her white fingers. My lady drops a mock
curtsey in return.

"Your Excellency can do no less than sue for a dance," drawled Dr.
Courtenay.

"And no more, I fear, sir, not being so nimble as I once was. I resign
in your favour, doctor," said Colonel Sharpe.

Dr. Courtenay made his bow, his hat tucked under his arm. But he had
much to learn of Miss Manners if he thought that even one who had been
governor of the province could command her. The music was just begun
again, and I making off in the direction of Patty Swain, when I was
brought up as suddenly as by a rope. A curl was upon Dorothy's lips.

"The dance belongs to Richard, doctor," she said.

"Egad, Courtenay, there you have a buffer!" cried Colonel Sharpe, as the
much-discomfited doctor bowed with a very ill grace; while I, in no small
bewilderment, walked off with Dorothy. And a parting shot of the
delighted colonel brought the crimson to my face. Like the wind or April
weather was my lady, and her ways far beyond such a great simpleton as I.

"So I am ever forced to ask you to dance!" said Dolly.

"What were you about, moping off alone, with a party in your
honour, sir?"

"I was watching you, as I told his Excellency."

"Oh, fie!" she cried. "Why don't you assert yourself, Richard? There
was a time when you gave me no peace."

"And then you rebuked me for dangling," I retorted.

Up started the music, the fiddlers bending over their bows with flushed
faces, having dipped into the cool punch in the interval. Away flung my
lady to meet Singleton, while I swung Patty, who squeezed my hand in
return. And soon we were in the heat of it,--sober minuet no longer, but
romp and riot, the screams of the lasses a-mingle with our own laughter,
as we spun them until they were di