THE BALL IN THE SOCIAL HALL

Arrived at the hall, the girls left their escorts at the door, and hurried into the crowded dressing room under the stage. What hand-shakings and laughing exchange of greetings they found there! What merry peals of gentle laughter! What garrulous exchanges of confidences as to the causes and effects of the day's labors and pleasures, were buzzing in the two low-ceiled, square dressing rooms that happy night!

Up from the basement came the fragrant odor of baking meats, and delicious pastry. A small army of cooks was busy preparing the elaborate supper; for this was one of the good old-time parties, for which the tickets cost five dollars in scrip or produce, or less in cash; and the guests came at early dusk, and after dancing for three or four hours, were served at the loaded tables in the basement, with the luxuries and delicacies of mountain food and mountain cooking; after eating heartily of the supper, all were ready then for the dance to be renewed until the early morning hours; at any time, however, the merry-makers were glad to cease from the gay quadrilles, and listen to the wise counsel or appropriate remarks made, perchance, by the Presidency of the Church or other good speakers, who were ever the merriest and best dancers in the room. At these innocent revelries also, there was a grateful lack of unholy passions and impure thoughts and words begotten by the too frequent round dancing of novel-reading youths.

"Did you ever, in your life, see Diantha and Ellie look so pretty?" asked more than one unselfish mother, as the two girls came up the little stairway from the dressing room, into the main hall, followed by their cavaliers.

Diantha was entrancing in her simple, straight-skirted, pale-blue slip—for she scorned the balloon-like hoops of the day—with no ornament save the pale gold masses of her luminous hair, and the rich pink and white of her unappreciated but glorious complexion. She herself disliked her chief charm, the warm, rich coloring, which gave so much glowing life and fascinating vitality to the otherwise somewhat cold expression and haughty air.

Both the girls danced with the lightest grace and the keenest enjoyment, and each was besieged with partners, for both were recognized belles in their own circle. Ellen Tyler watched and waited in vain for the appearance of her beloved friend, John Stevens. She had never heard a word of love from his lips; indeed, she had never given him direct encouragement to offer such words; but she knew that, with a little insistence on his part, she could pour out to him the wealth of her young heart. And with all her swarm of admirers, she was unsatisfied, and yearning for the love that had never been offered her. Yet she was too sweet and womanly to think for a moment of showing more interest in any man than his own interest in her justified. And so she waited and watched, trying to dance always in the set nearest the stairway which led to the outer north entrance of the hall.

She was not particularly surprised when a small boy came up to her and whispered that a gentleman outside wished to speak to her for a moment.

"Oh," she murmured in her heart, "it must be John."

She threw a shawl around her in passing the dressing room, and followed the boy outside. She saw no one when she got in the deserted doorway and was about to turn around and go back to the hall, for the lane looked very dark and forbidding at that late hour.

Just as she turned, a man with a dark cloak enveloping his whole form stepped out from the east corner of the building and, with a low bow, said softly:

"Forgive me, Miss Tyler, but the sight of heaven tempted me to try and draw out the angel, if but for one moment. I am lonesome, a stranger, and full of longing for the acquaintance of a sweet woman, be she sister or friend."

Ellen recognized the voice of her soldier acquaintance, and she involuntarily shrank back from him.

"Do not shrink from me, dear, sweet, gentle spirit. I am but a lonely, unhappy man, so near to a paradise of laughter, love and music, and yet unable to partake of one single element of all the glory that I see. You remember, even the angels are not ashamed to pity."

Just then someone came into the lane from the sidewalk, and Ellen hurriedly moved away to enter the deep doorway. As she turned, she felt a note thrust into her hand and then she was once more inside the safe precincts of the lighted, noisy building, and she put the note deep down into her pocket for future reference.

When she once more made her way into the dancing hall, she was surprised to find John Stevens dancing on the floor, and with no less a person than her dear friend Diantha. She wondered how she had missed him, but reflected that he must have come in while she was in the dressing room hunting her shawl.

"He will soon come to me," she whispered to herself, and waited impatiently for that coming.

But he did not come. Diantha and he danced together the first time and the second and the third time, and as Ellen had refused to dance, and was sitting on the side benches, she could easily follow them as the couple moved through the mazes of the quadrille and reel. Diantha's cheeks were glowing, and her eyes looked like blazing stars in the azure blue, while her lips were like the red balls on the winter wild rose bushes. And Ellen's sharp eyes noted that Diantha was not now wearing Charlie's ring. What was happening? Dian floated round with a rhythmical grace that was always so witching an accomplishment of her queenly beauty. Ellen watched and listened. She was too shrewd not to detect some meaning beneath all this throbbing excitement, and she knew that there was more than the usual effort to fascinate, in the manner of her friend Dian.

As for John, he seemed almost another man. Talk about blazing eyes; his almost burned into flame as he kept his intense gaze fastened upon the uplifted glances of his companion. He said little; Ellen could see that; but his look and his manner as he came near his dancing partner betrayed his whole secret. It was for the first time, too, for never before had he received such open, such undisguised encouragement from the girl beside him.

"John never looked at me like that," whispered Ellen in her own heart, "never, never!"

The two dancers were so absorbed in each other that they gave no heed whatever to anyone about them, and so it came to pass that the brief space of time spent by John in that eventful ball was spent wholly in the society of Diantha.

Ellen's enjoyment was all over. She felt nothing but a thrill of jealous regret, mingled with a passionate wish for another love to prove to John Stevens that she, too, could be sought and she felt as well an intense desire for the love itself. She was such a tender, clinging nature, physical love to her was not an incident, it was life itself.

When she was safely at home she opened her note and by the light of her tallow candle, she read:

"My Dear Young Friend:

"I trust you will pardon the seeming forwardness of this letter. Yours is such a gentle, forgiving nature, that you can but excuse, especially when you know that the act is prompted by as deep an affection and as earnest an admiration as could be bestowed by the heart of a man. I am heartsick and alone. I find myself filled with a love which is as hopeless as it is passionate; will you not let me at least have the mournful pleasure of expressing that love, although I know too well its hopeless character? You are so good, so pure that it cannot hurt you to become the one star of peace in a stranger's dark horizon. I would offer you all the love, protection and devotion usual to my walk in life, if I knew that I dared.

"At least, let me have the opportunity of telling you, once for all, the love that fills my whole being for the angel who saved my life at the risk of the anger and ostracism of her own people. Will you not meet me for a few happy, happy moments while I tell you of my friendship and esteem? I will be on the northeast corner of the block on which you live, with a sleigh, tomorrow evening after nine o'clock. If you wear a white scarf over your head I shall see you in the distance, and know you are coming.

"I am forever your hopeless, despairing

"LOVER."

The note was written on heavy cream-tinted paper. It bore a beautiful crest or monogram in one corner, and it was sealed delicately with pink sealing-wax, stamped with a signet ring, which bore the device of some ancient French nobleman, and it was filled with a delicious perfumery, the odor of which floated around her like a visible presence. Ellen felt in her inmost soul that she should at once destroy this letter, and go to Aunt Clara with her whole secret; but it was such an entrancing letter! And John Stevens had flouted her so cruelly. No! She would keep the letter just to read it again! And then Ellen gave herself over to vague, delirious day-dreams.