After luncheon, which had been carried through with all the proper ceremonies of the olden time according to Jimmy Danvers and Young Billy's interpretation of them, it came on to pour with rain; so these masters of the revels said that now the medieval dances should begin, and accordingly they turned on the gramophone that stood in the corner to amuse the children at the school treats.

And Mary and her admirer, Lord Henry Burns, and Emily and a Captain Hume, and Lady Betty and Jimmy Danvers, gayly took the floor, while Young Billy offered himself to the bride, as he said he as the representative of the Lord of the Castle had a right to the loveliest lady; and, with his young, stolid self-confidence, he pushed Lord Elterton aside.
Zara had not danced for a very long time--four years at least--and she had not an idea of the two-steps and barn-dances and other sorts of whirling capers that they invented; but she did her best, and gradually something of the excitement of the gay young spirits spread to her, and she forgot her sorrows and began to enjoy herself.
"You don't ever dance, I suppose, Mr.Markrute ?" Lady Ethelrida asked, as she stopped, with the gallant old Crow, flushed and smiling by the dais, where the financier and Lady Anningford sat.

"If you ever do, I, as the Lady of the Castle, ask you to 'tread a measure' with me!" "No one could resist such, an invitation," he answered, and put his arm around her for a valse.
"I do love dancing," she said, as they went along very well.

She was so surprised that this "grave and reverend signor," as she called him, should be able to valse! "So do I," said Francis Markrute--"under certain circumstances.

This is one of them." And then he suddenly held her rather tight, and laughed.
"Think of it all!" he went on.