"
She again sent him a grave, questioning look,
and began to gaze intently upon the stone in her bracelet.
"I suppose you will laugh at me," began she,
while a sudden blush flitted over her countenance.
"But this is my first ball, and I feel as
if I had rushed into a whirlpool, from which I
have, since the first rash plunge was made, been
vainly trying to escape. I feel so dreadfully
forlorn. I hardly know anybody here except
my cousin, who invited me, and I hardly think
I know him either."
"Well, since you are irredeemably committed,"
replied Ralph, as the music, after some
prefatory flourishes, broke into the delicious
rhythm of a Strauss waltz, "then it is no use
struggling against fate. Come, let us make the
plunge together. Misery loves company."
He offered her his arm, and she arose,
somewhat hesitatingly, and followed.
"I am afraid," she whispered, as they fell
into line with the procession that was moving
down the long hall, "that you have asked me to
dance merely because I said I felt forlorn. If
that is the case, I should prefer to be led back
to my seat."
"What a base imputation!" cried Ralph.
There was something so charmingly na
ive in
this self-depreciation--something so altogether
novel in his experience, and, he could not help
adding, just a little bit countrified. His spirits
rose; he began to relish keenly his position as an
experienced man of the world, and, in the
agreeable glow of patronage and conscious
superiority, chatted with hearty ABANDON with his
little rustic beauty.
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