Upon the New Year we made a feast and had a bottle of Sir William's port, another of Madeira, a punch of spirits, and three pewters of buttery ale. Lord! there was a New Year. And first, not daring to give drink to my Saguenay, we fed him till he was gorged, and so rolled him in a pile of furs till he slept by the oven below. Then we set twenty dips afire by the chimney, and filled it up with dry logs.... I am sorry we had so little sense; for I was something fuddled, and sang ballads--which I can not--and Nick would dance, which he did by himself; and his hornpipes and pigeon-wings and shuffles and war-dances made my head spin and my heavy eyes desire to cross. Penelope's cheeks burned, and she fanned and fanned her with a turkey wing and laughed to see Nick caper and to hear the piteous squalling which was my way of singing. But she complained that the dip-lights danced and that the floor behaved in strange fashion, running like ripples on Vlaie Water in a west wind. She had sipped but one glass of Sir William's port, but I think it was a glass too much; for the wine made her so hot, so she vowed, that her body was all one ardent coal, and so presently she pulled the hair-pegs from her hair and let it down and shook it out in the firelight till it flashed like a golden scarf flung about her. Her pannier basque of rose silk--gift of Claudia and made in France--she presently slipped out of, leaving her in her petticoat and folded like a Quakeress in her crossed foulard, and her white arms as bare as her neck. Which innocently concerned her not a whit, nor had she any more thought of her throat's loveliness than she had of herself in her shift that morning at Bowman's. She sat cooling her face with the turkey-wing fan and watching Nick's contre-dancing--his own candle-cast shadow on the wall dancing vis-à-vis--and she laughed and laughed, a-fanning there, like a child delighted by the antics of two older brothers, while Nick whirled on moccasined feet in his mad career, and I fifed windily to time his gambolading. Then we played country games, but she would not kiss us as forfeit, defending her lips and vowing that no man should ever again take that toll of her. Which contented me, though I remonstrated; and I was glad that Nick should not cheapen her lips though it cost me the same privilege. For we played "Swallow! Swallow!" and I guessed correctly how many apple pips she held in her hand when she sang: "Who can count the swallow's eggs? Try it, Master Nimble-legs! Climb and find a swallow's nest, Count the eggs beneath her breast, Take an egg and leave the rest And kiss the maid you love the best!" But it was her hand only we might kiss, and but one finger at that--the smallest--for, says she, "John Drogue hath said it, and I am mistress of Summer House! What I choose to give--or forgive--is of my proper choice.... And I do not choose to be kissed by any man whether he wears silk puce or deer-skin shirt!"