Where the sky was pale in the east over the rim of wood came the forehead of the yellow moon. We stood and watched in silence. Then, as the great disc, nearly full, lifted and looked straight upon us, we were washed off our feet in a vague sea of moonlight. We stood with the light like water on our faces. Lettie was glad, a little bit exalted; Emily was passionately troubled; her lips were parted, almost beseeching; Leslie was frowning, oblivious, and George was thinking, and the terrible, immense moonbeams braided through his feeling. At length Leslie said softly, mistakenly: “Come along, dear”—and he took her arm. She let him lead her along the bank of the pond, and across the plank over the sluice. “Do you know,” she said, as we were carefully descending the steep bank of the orchard, “I feel as if I wanted to laugh, or dance—something rather outrageous.” “Surely not like that _now_,” Leslie replied in a low voice, feeling really hurt. “I do though! I will race you to the bottom.” “No, no, dear!” He held her back. When he came to the wicket leading on to the front lawns, he said something to her softly, as he held the gate. I think he wanted to utter his half finished proposal, and so bind her. She broke free, and, observing the long lawn which lay in grey shadow between the eastern and western glows, she cried: “Polka!—a polka—one can dance a polka when the grass is smooth and short—even if there are some fallen leaves. Yes, yes—how jolly!” She held out her hand to Leslie, but it was too great a shock to his mood. So she called to me, and there was a shade of anxiety in her voice, lest after all she should be caught in the toils of the night’s sentiment. “Pat—you’ll dance with me—Leslie hates a polka.” I danced with her. I do not know the time when I could not polka—it seems innate in one’s feet, to dance that dance. We went flying round, hissing through the dead leaves. The night, the low hung yellow moon, the pallor of the west, the blue cloud of evening overhead went round and through the fantastic branches of the old laburnum, spinning a little madness. You cannot tire Lettie; her feet are wings that beat the air. When at last I stayed her she laughed as fresh as ever, as she bound her hair. “There!” she said to Leslie, in tones of extreme satisfaction, “that was lovely. Do you come and dance now.” “Not a polka,” said he, sadly, feeling the poetry in his heart insulted by the jigging measure. “But one cannot dance anything else on wet grass, and through shuffling dead leaves. You, George?” “Emily says I jump,” he replied.