"Your servant, Miss Pool!" and it was over, and the mist began to clear from Miss Bethesda's eyes, as she turned aside to ask the fiddler if he was ready. The fiddler was ready, of course. He had been tuning his fiddle for the last fifteen minutes, and his fingers were itching to begin. Was he not a pupil of old Jacques de Arthenay, the famous fiddler of the last generation? And had he not been shelved for the past ten years, just because folks were fools enough to prefer an organ and a cornet to the only instrument ordained of Heaven to make people dance! So with right good-will he mounted the stool in the corner, and struck up the "Lady of the Lake." How many years it was since that hall had rung to the sound of a fiddle! Probably no one present knew; but many, and especially the older ones, or those who were cast in a sentimental mould, felt that there was something ghostly in this first dance. People were a little timid, perhaps; and their hostess, standing silent and stately in her stiff brocade, was not the one to set them at their ease. It seemed to Miss Selina Leaf as if, when the dancers took their places in the two long lines, she heard the rustle of many gowns that were not seen in the room; as if old, forgotten perfumes were wafted through the air, and soft, subdued voices whispered courtly greetings at her side. She was "littery," Miss Selina, and had written many "sweet things" for the county weekly. But the "Lady of the Lake" is a robust and inspiring dance, and soon banished all shadowy or sentimental thoughts from the minds of the dancers. "Down the middle!" "Sashy to partners!" "Turn the same!" "Eight hands round!" Soon eyes were sparkling and cheeks glowing like flame, and the young feet went flying up and down the long, low room, as young feet will fly when the fiddle sounds and the blood courses freely through the veins. Miss Bethesda Pool looked on with bright eyes, her foot (she had the prettiest foot in the room, and knew it) tapping in time to the music. She had refused several invitations to dance, without a word, simply a sniff of denial; but it was good to see a dance again. Will Newell was there, dancing with his cousin, the pasty-faced girl, who would have money when her grandfather died: dancing dutifully, as if the cousin were the only girl in the room, and not so much as glancing toward where Nan Bradford, more rosy than ever, was footing it lightly as a fairy, opposite young Jacob Flynt. Jacob was her father's choice for her, as everybody knew; and it was no wonder that Buckstone Bradford looked cheerful and contented as he leaned against the wall with folded arms, watching the dancers.