"Tar-a-ta! tar-a-ta!" went Captain Judah's trumpet, and I looked up to see what new event its blast denoted. For, Captain Judah was a stage driver, and having brought his horn along as a signal compliment to the occasion, he was now conducting the first stages of the ball with those loud flourishes and elegant social convenances which only those sophisticated by extreme culture are supposed to understand. "Tar-a-ta! tar-a-ta!" I saw that Vesty and Gurdon had risen to dance together. Vesty wrapped and laid her sleeping baby among the others, and Gurdon stepped out to perform first that solitary jig or shuffle which is demanded of every householder among the Basins, before he can lead his partner to the dance. Notely and the young man he had called "Sid" watched him shaking his long legs, his heavy, noble face perfectly sincere and unembarrassed; for was it not the ancient, honorable custom of the Basins? "Stolid cart-horse, by Jove!" sneered Sid, casting a glowing glance at Vesty, "for such a Venus!" Notely did not like the tone. "There 's some stolid granite in my quarry," he snarled softly; "but it 's everlasting good granite, all the same, Sid." "You've been knocked over, I see," said the irrepressible Sid, smiling intelligently at him. "Well, I'm off for the jig." "Tar-a-ta! tar-a-ta!" The trumpet punctually announced the appearance of so much colorless linen and broadcloth on the floor; but the Basins, who were fine, gazed at his severe costume with tender pity. "Sid," appreciating this, dared not laugh: he endeavored to redeem this lack of beauty by a display of his white bediamonded hand on his watch-guard, as he entreated a partner for the dance, but he was not held for much; that was evident. Now and then in the reel he touched Vesty's hand, or swung with her, and he stared at her consistently and immoderately throughout; but always for him the holy lids were low over her eyes. My heart exulted something like the next blast of the trumpet; I turned to look. Vesty was safe. "Tar-a-ta! tar-a-ta!" But Captain Pharo needed no stirring strain to his consciousness as he walked, with scarcely perceptible limp, to the middle of the floor. That flowered jacket, the arnica bloom glowing like sunrise on the back! Those new trousers, of "middling" sacks, "Brand No. 1" proudly distinct upon the right leg! "Give me sea-room here, give me sea-room," said the hero; "and jest wait till I git my spavins warmed up a little!" A wide, clear swath was cut from the billows that surrounded Captain Pharo. "Now then," said he, pulling his pipe from his pocket, and drawing a match in the usual informal way; "Poo! poo! hohum!-- [Illustration: Music fragment: "'My days are as the grass, Or as--'] strike up somethin' lively over there, Gurd. Give us 'The Wracker's Darter,' by clam!" Gurdon, who had returned to relieve Fluke at the violin, good-naturedly struck up "The Wrecker's Daughter."