It was all still below stairs, then a soft, stealthy silken movement, cautiously coming up the stairs. Julia Cloud went quickly to the hall door, and switched on the light. On the landing stood Leslie, lovely and flushed, with her hair slightly ruffled and her velvet evening cloak thrown back, showing the rosy mist of her dress. She stood with one silver slipper poised on the stairs, a sweet, guilty look on her face.
"O Cloudy! I thought you were asleep, and I didn't want to waken you," she said, penitently; "but you haven't gone to bed yet, have you? I'm glad. We wanted you to know we were home."
"Is anything the matter?" Julia Cloud asked with a stricture of emotion in her throat.
"No; only we got tired, and we didn't want to stay to their old party, anyway, and we'd rather be home." Leslie sprang up the stairs, and caught her aunt in her arms with one of her sweet, violent kisses.
"O my dear!" was all Julia Cloud could say. And then they heard Allison closing the door softly below, and creaking across the floor and up the stairs.
"Oh, you waked her up!" he said reproachfully as he caught sight of his sister in Julia Cloud's arms.
"No, you're wrong. She hadn't even gone to bed yet. I knew she wouldn't," said Leslie, nestling closer. "Say, Cloudy, we're not going to trouble you that way again. It isn't worth it. We don't like their old dancing, anyway. I couldn't forget the way you looked so hurt--and the things you said. Won't you please come down to the fire awhile? We want to tell you about it."
Down on the couch, with Allison stirring up the dying embers and Leslie nestled close to her, Julia Cloud heard bits about the evening.
"It wasn't bad, Cloudy, 'deed it wasn't. They dance a lot nicer in colleges than they do other places. I know, for I've been to lots of dances, and I never let men get too familiar. Allison taught me that when I was little. That's why what you said made me so mad. I've always been a lot carefuller than you'd think, and I never dance with anybody the second time if I don't like the way he does it the first time. And everybody was real nice and dignified to-night, Cloudy. The boys are all shy and bashful, anyway; only I couldn't forget what you had said about not liking to have me do it; and it made everything seem so--so--well, not nice; and I just felt uncomfortable; and one dance I sent the boy for a glass of water for me, and I just sat it out; and, when Allison saw me, he came over, and said, 'Let's beat it!' and so I slipped up to the dressing-room, and got my cloak, and we just ran away without telling anybody. Wasn't that perfectly dreadful? But I'll call the girl up after a while, and tell her we had to come home and we didn't want to spoil their fun telling them so."