"Isn't that rather droll?" asked the Altrurian.
"It's grotesque!" I said, and I felt ashamed of it. "But what are you to
do? The young men are hard at work in the cities, as many as can get work
there, and the rest are out West, growing up with the country. There are
twenty young girls for every young man at all the summer resorts in the
East."
"But what would happen if these young farmers--I suppose they are
farmers--were invited in to take part in the dance?" asked my friend.
"But that is impossible."
"Why?"
"Really, Mrs. Makely, I think I shall have to give him back to you," I
said.
The lady laughed. "I am not sure that I want him back."
"Oh yes," the Altrurian entreated, with unwonted perception of the humor.
"I know that I must be very trying with my questions; but do not abandon
me to the solitude of my own conjectures. They are dreadful!"
"Well, I won't," said the lady, with another laugh. "And I will try to
tell you what would happen if those farmers, or farm-hands, or whatever
they are, were asked in. The mammas would be very indignant, and the young
ladies would be scared, and nobody would know what to do, and the dance
would stop.
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