"Yes, but wait. The grandest, glorious-est thing happened. Just as we came from behind the palms who should be bowing to the chaperons but the handsomest man I ever saw in my life. Tall, dark, distinguished-looking, with one white lock of hair and all the rest black as a coal. He has a slight limp from a wound at Magersfontein, but it only distinguished him the more and doesn’t interfere with his dancing a bit. Well, when he saw Carolina, his face lighted up and he said, ’Oh, Miss Lee, how awfully jolly to see you again! To tell the truth, I had half a mind not to come, after all I had promised, and I wanted to get out of it the worst way until I heard that you were to be here. Then I couldn’t get here fast enough.’ Well, mother, even if every girl there hadn’t suddenly found that side of the room strangely attractive, his voice has a carrying tone, and--well, I wish you could have seen those girls. They looked as though they had been slapped in the face." "As they deserved!" said Mrs. La Grange, grimly. "Then the band struck up a two-step and he turned to Mrs. Winchester and asked her if she would save her first square dance for him, but she said she wasn’t dancing. So then he asked Carolina. She gave me a little look which meant that I could have him next, and then! Well, I’ve seen dancing all my life, but I never saw anybody dance as those two did. It was like the flight of swallows. So graceful, so dignified, so distinguished, and yet so spirited. Carolina dances like a breeze." "I can imagine just how she dances," cried Mrs. La Grange, excitedly. "Go on, child!" "Well, the funniest sight of all was Cousin Lois. She drew her chin in and waved her fan and puffed herself out for all the world like our turkey-hen. I could have laughed." "I know just how she felt--just how I should have felt in her place if you had been treated as Carolina was. Then did he dance with you?" "Yes, then he danced with me. Then with Carolina again. Then she said to him, ’Now, Sir Hubert, I want you to meet some of these pretty girls, but as I don’t know them myself, I shall ask Mr. Little to take you around and introduce you to the brightest of them, so that you will take away with you the best impression of our Southern girls.’" "Oh, Peachie! I couldn’t have done that!" "Nor I either, mother. I just couldn’t. So Jim started to take him, but he said, ’Just wait a moment.’ Then he came to me and took--" "I hope he took more than one!" cried Mrs. La Grange, jealously. "He took seven, mother. And in the German he favoured me until--" "That was too many, Peachie. You ought not--" "I know, dearest honey mother. I ought not to do heaps of things I do do, but after all, what do I care what those people think of me? All they can say is that I flirted with him--" "Or that he flirted with you," laughed her mother. "Oh, yes, they will say that, never fear. And yet--" "And yet what, my darling? Here we are at home."