In point of fact, the homelanders had not been exactly as they now were. The sudden cessation of the strain imposed on them by the dragon’s presence, and of the comparative hardships also imposed by it, had caused a reaction so strong as to restore to them in a rather accentuated form what faults had originally been theirs. Human nature had grown rather more human than ever. Labour was a less than ever alluring thing. Responsibilities had a greater irksomeness. Freedom was all. And, as having special measure of vital force, especially were youths and maidens intent on making the most of their freedom. Their freedom was their religion; and, as every religion needs rites, they ritualistically danced. They danced much during the day, and then much by moonlight or starlight or firelight, in a grim and purposeful, an angular and indeflexible manner, making it very clear that they were not to be trifled with. Thia, when first she saw them engaged thus, had been very glad; she imagined that they must be doing something useful. When she realised that they were dancing, she drew a deep breath. She remembered how she herself had danced--danced thoughtlessly and anyhow, from her heart, with every scrap of her body. She blushed at the recollection. She did not wonder that the homelanders had resented her dance on the morning after her marriage. She wondered that they had encouraged her to dance when she was a child. And she felt that there must, after all, be in these young people a deep fund of earnestness, auguring well for their future. Time had not confirmed this notion. The young people danced through the passing seasons and the passing years with ever greater assiduity and solemnity; but other forms of seriousness were not manifested by them. Few of them seemed to find time even for falling in love and marrying. They all, however, called one another ‘beloved,’ and had a kind of mutual good-will which their elders, among themselves, would have done well to emulate. And for those elders they had a tolerant feeling which ought to have been, yet was not, fully reciprocated.