The two men holding the towel between them gave him their moist hands, and those at the basins nodded. Mrs. Bradley drew him into the sitting-room. The buzz of conversation ceased as she introduced him. They all rose, bowed, and sat down again, but no one spoke. He tried to detain his hostess, but she would not stay. "I've got to look atter the rest," she said. "You must talk to some o' these folks. They didn't come here jest to look at you. Here, Jennie Wynn, turn yore face round, an' give Frank a chance to talk to Lou." She whisked off into another room, and Westerfelt found himself facing a blushing maiden with a round face, dark hair and eyes. "Excuse my back," she said over her shoulder to Frank Hansard. "It _hain't_ as purty as yore face, ef you _have_ got on a new dress," he replied, laughing. "Hush, Frank; hain't you got no manners?" She meant that he was showing discourtesy by continuing to talk to her when she had just been introduced to a stranger. "You ought not to be hard on him," said Westerfelt; "he must have meant what he said." "You are jest like all the rest, I reckon," she said; "men think girls don't care for nothin' but sweet talk." Just then the old negro fiddler moved into the chimney-corner and raked his violin with his bow. Jennie Wynn knew that he was about to ask the couples to take their places for the first dance. She did not want Westerfelt to feel obliged to ask her to be his partner, so she pretended to be interested in the talk of a couple on her left. "Do they dance the lancers?" asked Westerfelt. "No, jest the reg'lar square dance. Only one or two know the lancers, an' they make a botch of it whenever they try to teach the rest. Uncle Mack cayn't play the music for it, anyway, though he swears he can." She glanced across the room at a pretty little girl with short curly hair, slender body, and small feet, and added, significantly, "Sarah Wambush is our brag dancer." He understood what she meant. "Too short for a fellow as tall as I am, though," he said. "Git yo' pahtners fer de quadrille!" cried the fiddler, in a sing-song voice, quite in harmony with his music. Westerfelt did not want to dance. He had ridden hard that day, and was tired and miserable, but he saw no way of escape. The party had been given in his honor, and he must show appreciation of it. "Will you dance it with me?" he asked the girl at his side. "I am not a good dancer, and I am stiff from riding to-day."