How dazzlingly bright the room was, how brilliantly showed the people, how gay the scene! One partner after another claimed Dosia. She danced and danced, and did not know she danced. This was her ball! And in all that throng there was not one person whom she could call her friend. She fancied that people were whispering as she passed them. She had but one prayer—that the evening might end. She met Justin’s eyes from time to time; they looked stern and disapproving. Even Leverich had an altered expression. She knew both he and Justin blamed her, and she was right. Those who are responsible are squeamish as to the appearance of delicacy in the conduct of a young girl. Lawson was in the greater condemnation, yet there was more of personal irritation felt with her, in that such a thing had been possible; it lowered her, and it placed them all in an awkward position. Justin had said to Leverich briefly, “She had better come back to us at once,” and Leverich had answered, “Well, perhaps it would be best.” William Snow stayed outside in the hall, not coming into the ball-room at all. He stood, instead, leaning against a doorway, and watched everyone who approached Dosia; his brows were lowering, his attitude aggressive. He saw that George Sutton hovered around Dosia when she was not dancing, his round moon-face, suffused with pleasure, bent solicitously toward her. Once she sent him for a glass of water, and William saw that she had lapsed momentarily on a corner divan by his sister Bertha. He noticed the wistful eyes raised to the elder woman, but he did not hear the younger say with a suddenly tremulous voice: “Oh, Miss Bertha, I’m so glad to be here with you!” “Thank you, my dear.” “I’m homesick,” said Dosia, with a white smile. “Oh, Miss Bertha, I’m so homesick!” Her fancy had leaped passionately to the security of the untidy cottage in the South, with its irresponsive inmates, as if it were really the loving home she longed for. “Homesick at a ball!” said Miss Bertha, with a kind inflection. She patted the folds of the dress near her comfortingly with her thin ungloved hand. “You oughtn’t to be homesick now, you must enjoy yourself, my dear; you’re young.” Something in her tone nearly brought the tears to Dosia’s burning eyes. If she could only have stayed with Miss Bertha! But she was claimed for the dance. Why must you dance when you were dead? Would the ball never end?