"In that case, I suppose I must yield," Abby answered good-naturedly; "I should hate to mar your pleasure of the first Kentucky dance you ever attended," and she rose smilingly and took his arm. A proud and happy man was Abner as they crossed the room to take their places among the eager groups who were standing about impatiently waiting while Mason Rogers fitted a new string to his fiddle. "'Fairer than Rachel at the palmy well, Fairer than Ruth amid the fields of corn, Fair as the angel that said "hail," she seemed!'" quoted Abner, bending his head to look into the face of the girl beside him--the grandiloquence of the quotation and the blunt directness of the flattery atoned for by the earnest sincerity of his voice and glance. Abby was indeed a fair and gracious vision as she stood there, straight and lissome as a young palm-tree. The somber plainness of her winter gown of dark merino and the soft, clinging texture of her muslin tucker accentuated the delicate fairness of skin, the dainty perfection of feature, and the exquisite beauty of the white throat. Her quiet, rather pensive face was just now unusually animated, and the faint sea-shell tint of her cheek was deepened into a glowing crimson. "This homely scene is a contrast to that Assembly ball, isn't it?" Dudley said presently; "and how different my position now from that of the forlorn youth who that night stood afar off, gazing with useless longing at the brilliant scene within the ballroom! Little did I then dream that to-night in far-off Kentucky I should be leading the reel with the peerless belle of that assembly." "There stands the 'peerless belle' of this assembly," returned Miss Patterson, looking across to Betsy Gilcrest, the center of a group of boys and girls. "Dear little girl!" continued Abby; "she appears in her airiest, sauciest mood to-night, and is clearly bent on enjoying life to its fullest extent. No one holds her head so prettily as Betty; no one laughs and chatters with such innocent gayety. Is she not bewitching?" A momentary look of vexation flitted across the young man's face. "What is Betsy's witchery to me, and why does Abby always try to divert my attention when I would give our conversation a personal meaning?" he thought gloomily. "Of course," he admitted, glancing at Betsy with reluctant admiration, "she is bright and winning, and extremely attractive, at least to the youths of this community; but she is not the rose, and I----" "Ah! It is easy to see what is the attraction here for that bepowdered, beruffled, fashionable swain, as well as for the Cane Ridge youths," Miss Patterson interrupted, as James Anson Drane presented himself before Betsy, and bowed over her hand with a courtly grace befitting a far more brilliant scene than this country dance in the old loom-room.