For, stationary though he
was, he was really giving himself the benefit of a final rehearsal,
and mentally performing steps of intricate and marvelous variety.
"Stop moving your feet!" whispered Annette. "You'll step on my dress."
"Is it the mazurka that's got the hiccoughs in the middle?" asked
Sandy, anxiously.
Mr. Meech paused and looked at them over his spectacles in plaintive
reproach.
Then he wandered on into sixthlies and seventhlies of increasing
length. Before the final amen had died upon the air, Annette and Sandy
had escaped to their reward.
The hop was given in the town hall, a large, dreary-looking room with
a raised platform at one end, where Johnson's band introduced
instruments and notes that had never met before.
To Sandy it was a hall of Olympus, where filmy-robed goddesses moved
to the music of the spheres.
"Isn't the floor g-grand?" cried Annette, with a little run and a
slide. "I could just d-die dancing."
"What may the chalk line be for?" asked Sandy.
"That's to keep the stags b-back."
"The stags?" His spirits fell before this new complication.
"Yes; the boys without partners, you know. They have to stay b-back of
the chalk line and b-break in from there. You'll catch on right away.
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