Presently he found himself looking in at the window again. Joe had disappeared from the scene. Bub Quinn and his Aggy were sitting side by side in stony silence. The fiddles had fallen into a more sentimental strain; hints of "The Mocking Bird" might be heard struggling for utterance in the strings. In this ambitious attempt the pitch would get lower and lower, and then recover itself with a queer falsetto effect. Charley Leroy, the crack "bronco-buster" of the region, was caller-out this time. He was less inventive than the curly-headed boy, but he gave out his commands in the same chanting measure, and the tramp, tramp of the feet was as rhythmic as ever. The curly-headed boy was having his turn at the dance, "assisted" by a sallow, middle-aged woman in a brown woollen dress, who made frequent dashes into the adjoining room to quiet her baby. Lem noticed that the hands of the curly-headed boy were so tanned that the finger-nails showed white by contrast. He also observed that Aggy's neck was as pink as her cheeks, which had not been the case half an hour before. In his effort not to look at Bub Quinn, Lem's attention had become vague and scattered. He fixed his eyes upon an elderly man of an anxious countenance, with a shock of tow-colored hair sticking straight out in all directions. The man was having some difficulty in steering his partner through an intricate figure; he was the only person on the floor who did not keep step, and his movements became at every moment more vague and undecided. When, at last, the wiry, determined-looking "bronco-buster" sprang upon the company the somewhat abstruse direction: "Lady round the gent, and the gent don't go; Lady round the lady, and the gent so-_lo_!" the "gent" in question became hopelessly bewildered, and stood stock still in the middle of the floor. By the time the set was disentangled, the dance seemed to be over, and the "bronco-buster" dismissed the dancers with the cynical prophecy, "You'll all get married on a _stor-my day_!" At this juncture, midnight being well passed, supper was announced. The kitchen door swung open, and the fragrant smell of the coffee took possession of the room, and floated out through the open window. As some one closed the window in his face, Lem followed the other loungers into the house. The men had all made a stampede for the kitchen; the women sat on chairs and benches against the wall, some of them leaning their heads back wearily, while others fanned themselves and their neighbors with vigor, not relaxing for a moment the somewhat strained vivacity which they felt that the occasion demanded. Bub Quinn's Aggy--no one knew her last name--sat a little apart from the others. She was apparently absorbed in the contemplation of her pocket-handkerchief, a piece of coarse finery, which she held by the exact middle, flirting it across her face in lieu of the fan, which had slid to the floor.