the timid
slipper. The path back to her room was certainly the simplest path
that she knew--and the dullest. Equally tentatively she withdrew from
the timid slipper and tried the adventurous one. "O-u-c-h!" she cried
out loud. The sole of the second slipper seemed fairly sizzling with
excitement.

With a slight gasp of impatience, then, she reached out and pulled the
timid slipper back into line, stepped firmly into it, pointed both
slipper-toes unswervingly southward, and proceeded on down-stairs to
investigate the "Christian Dance."

At the first turn of the lower landing she stopped short, with every
ennui-darkened sense in her body "jacked" like a wild deer's senses
before the sudden dazzle of sight, sound, scent that awaited her
below. Before her blinking eyes she saw even the empty, humdrum hotel
office turned into a blazing bower of palms and roses and electric
lights. Beyond this bower a corridor opened out--more dense, more
sweet, more sparkling. And across this corridor the echo of the unseen
ball came diffusing through the palms--the plaintive cry of a violin,
the rippling laugh of a piano, the swarming hum of human voices, the
swish of skirts, the agitant thud-thud-thud of dancing feet, the
throb, almost, of young hearts--a thousand commonplace, every-day
sounds merged here and now into one magic harmony that thrilled little
Eve Edgarton as nothing on God's big earth had ever thrilled her
before.

Hurriedly she darted down the last flight of steps and sped across the
bright office to the dark veranda, consumed by one fuming, passionate,
utterly uncontrollable curiosity to see with her own eyes just what
all that wonderful sound looked like!

Once outside in the darkness her confusion cleared a little. It was
late, she reasoned--very, very late, long after midnight probably; for
of all the shadowy, flickering line of evening smokers that usually
crowded that particular stretch of veranda only a single distant glow
or two remained. Yet even now in the almost complete isolation of her
surroundings the old inherent bashfulness swept over her again and
warred chaotically with her insistent purpose. As stealthily as
possible she crept along the dark wall to the one bright spot that
flared forth like a lantern lens from the gay ballroom--crept
along--crept along--a plain little girl in a plain little dress,
yearning like all the other plain little girls of the world, in all
the other plain little dresses of