By eight o'clock the Olneyites had assembled in full force; but it was
not until the train came in and brought the élite from Camden that the
party was fairly commenced. There was a hush when the three ladies with
veils on their heads went up the stairs, and a greater hush when they
came down again--Mrs. Judge Miller, splendid in green moire-antique,
with diamonds in her ears, while Marcia Fenton and Ella Backus figured
in white tarletan, one with trimmings of blue, the other with trimmings
of pink, and both with waists so much lower than Ethelyn's that Mrs.
Markham thought the latter very decent by comparison.
It took the ladies a few minutes to inspect the cut of Mrs. Miller's
dress, and the style of hair worn by Marcia and Ella, whose heads had
been under a hairdresser's hands, and were curiosities to some of the
Olneyites. But all stiffness vanished with the sound of Jerry Plympton's
fiddle, and the girls on the west side of the room began to look at the
boys on the opposite side, who were straightening their collars and
glancing at their "pumps."
Ethelyn did not intend to dance, but when Judge Miller politely offered
to lead her to the floor, saying, as he guessed her thoughts, "Remember
the old adage, 'among the Romans, and so forth,'" she involuntarily
assented, and even found herself leading the first cotillion to the
sound of Jerry Plympton's fiddle. Mrs. Miller was dancing, too, as were
both Marcia and Ella, and that in a measure reconciled her to what she
was doing. They knew something of the lancers there on the prairie, and
terrible Tim Jones offered to call off "if Miss Markham would dance with
him and kind of keep him goin' straight."
Tim had laid a wager with a companion as rough as himself, that he would
dance with the proud beauty, and this was the way he took to win the
bet. The ruse succeeded, too, Richard's eyes and low-toned "Ethelyn!"
availing more than aught else to drive Ethelyn to the floor with the
dreadful Tim, who interlarded his directions with little asides of his
own, such as "Go it, Jim," "Cut her down there, Tom," "Hurry up
your cakes."
Ethelyn could have screamed out with disgust, and the moment the set was
over she said to Richard, "I shall not dance again to-night."
And she kept her word, until toward the close of the party when poor
Andy, who had been so unfortunate as to find everybody engaged or too
tired, came up to her as she was playing an accompaniment to Jerry's
"Money-musk," and with a most doleful expression, said to her, timidly: "Please, sister Ethie, dance just once with me; none of the girls wants
to, and I hain't been in a figger to-night."