If you'll stick close to me all through this dance and come every time I lift my eyebrows this way"-- she came near getting kissed, right then, but she never knew it--"and say it's _your_ dance and that I promised it to you before, I'll be--_awfully_ grateful and obliged." "I wisht," said Billy pensively, "I had the nerve to take all this for sudden admiration; but I savvy, all right.

Some poor devil's going to get it handed to him to-night." For the first time Miss Bridger blushed consciously.

"I--well, you'll be good and obliging and do just what I want, won't you ?" "Sure!" said Billy, not trusting himself to say more.

Indeed, he had to set his teeth hard on that word to keep more from tumbling out.
Miss Bridger seemed all at once anxious over something.
"You waltz and two-step and polka and schottische, don't you ?" Her eyes, as she looked up at him, reminded Billy achingly of that time in the line-camp when she asked him for a horse to ride home.

They had the same wistful, pleading look.