Oh, could he have my share of din, And I his quiet!—past a doubt, ’Twould still be one man bored within, And just another bored without.” A surge of hot and scented air enveloped him with the opening of the door. The crowd in the hall contradicted the hostess’ declaration that no more people would be admitted than could be comfortably accommodated. Struggling up to the dressing room he got rid of hat and overcoat, and struggled down again and to the door of the rear drawing room. A curtain was rung up from a stage at the end of the apartment as he gained a view of it. The scene was the interior of an old-fashioned barn. Wreaths of evergreen hung against the walls and depended from the rafters, and the floor was cleared for dancing. From a door at the side a figure tripped into the middle of the stage. Arthur looked twice before he recognized the wearer of the colonial gown of old-gold brocade, brief of waist, and allowing beneath the skirt glimpses of trim ankles in clocked stockings. Her hair was piled over a cushion and powdered; eyebrows and lashes were deftly darkened, and the carmine of cheek and mouth owed brilliancy to rouge-pot and hare’s foot. She was the belle of the ball to be held in the barn, and while waiting for the rest of the revelers, she began to recite, in soliloquy, the old rhymes of _Money Musk_. At the second line, from an unseen orchestra, issued low and faint, like the echo of a spent strain, the popular dance tune. It stole so insidiously upon the air as to suggest the musical thought of the soliloquist, and was rather a background than an accompaniment to the recitative. Gradually, as the story went on, the lithe figure began to sway in perfect time to the phantom music; the eyes, smilingly eager, seemed to look upon what the lips described; the feet stirred and twinkled rhythmically; form and face were embodied melody. Vivified by reverie, expectant and reminiscent, the radiant impersonation of the poet’s picture floated airily through the enchanting measures. As a morning paper put it, “she seemed to respire the music to which she swayed and chanted.” The audience, “though _blasé_ with much merrymaking and sight-seeing, hung entranced upon every motion, until, wafted by gentle degrees toward the side-scene opposite to that by which she had entered, she vanished on the last word of the poem.” Recalled by a tumult of applause, she courtesied in colonial fashion, and kissed her hand brightly to her admirers, but instead of vouchsafing a repetition of what had stirred the spectators out of their _nil admirari_ mood, beckoned archly to the left and right. A troop of young men and girls obeyed the summons and fell into place in the country dance that went forward to the now ringing measures of _Money Musk_.