and their own success in their guttural language. Only the younger, more sprightly of them were dancing.
At last the music stopped, the fiddler laying down his instrument and the musician at the spinet rising with him to partake of the egg-nogg a servant was offering them. And before they had resumed playing, Mehitable had been led away by young Von Garten and Charity had been solicited for the minuet by a fat, fussy old officer who proved to be exceptionally light upon his feet.
Fortunately for them, both girls had been painstakingly and carefully taught the minuet and some of the quadrilles popular at that time by their brother John, who had learned this fol-de-rol, as his father called it, in New York. But dancing among these gay revelers with real music was far different from dancing out in the big empty hayloft with the only music supplied breathlessly by John's whistling.
"Why, how easy it is!" gasped Mehitable. She glanced up at Von Garten as he held her hand in the air for her to circle around him.
He smiled down at her. "You speak as though surprised. Why?" he asked idly.
But Mehitable, a sudden quick memory of the little girl in homespun frock hopping up and down in the big barn, of John's sharp "Don't bob when you curtsey! Go down slowly to the floor—so! And now up again slowly—so! Slowly! Slowly!" overwhelming her, merely shook her head and smiled with aching throat. Oh, to see John again! To hear once more his brief brotherly praise, "Well done, little Hitty!"
