Master Thayne made a proper bow, and glanced up at the young girl with a smile lurking behind the diffidence in his face.  Leslie smiled outright, and held out her hand.

It was not a brilliant debut, perhaps.  The Haddens had been appropriated by a couple of youths in frock coats and orthodox kids, with a suspicion of mustaches; and one of the Thoresbys had a young captain of cavalry, with gold bars on his shoulders.  Elinor Hadden raised her pretty eyebrows, and put as much of a mock-miserable look into her happy little face as it could hold, when she found her friend, so paired, at her right hand.

“It’s very good of you to stand up with me,” said the boy simply.  “It’s awful slow, not knowing anybody.”

“Are you here alone?” asked Leslie.

“Yes; there was nobody to come with me.  Oliver—­my brother—­will come by and by, and perhaps my uncle and the rest of them, to meet me where I’m to be, down among the mountains.  We’re all broken up this summer, and I’m to take care of myself.”

“Then you don’t stay here?”

“No; I only came this way to see what it was like.  I’ve got a jolly place engaged for me, at Outledge.”

“Outledge?  Why, we are going there!”

“Are you?  That’s—­jolly!” repeated the boy, pausing a second for a fresher or politer word, but unable to supply a synonym.

“I’m glad you think so,” answered Leslie, with her genuine smile again.

The two had already made up their minds to be friends.  In fact, Master Thayne would hardly have acquiesced in being led up for introduction to any other young girl in the room.  There had been something in Leslie Goldthwaite’s face that had looked kind and sisterly to him.  He had no fear of a snub with her; and these things Mr. Wharne had read, in his behalf, as well.

“He’s a queer old fellow, that Mr. Wharne, isn’t he?” pursued Master Thayne, after forward and back, as he turned his partner to place.  “But he’s the only one that’s had anything to say to me, and I like him.  I’ve been down to the old mill with him to-day.  Those people”—­motioning slightly toward the other set, where the Thoresbys were dancing—­“were down there, too.  You’d ought to have seen them look!  Don’t they hate him, though?”

“Hate him?  Why should they do that?”

“Oh, I don’t know.  People feel each other out, I suppose.  And a word of his is as much as a whole preach of anybody’s else.  He says a word now and then, and it hits.”

“Yes,” responded Leslie, laughing.

“What did you do it for?” whispered Elinor, in hands across.

“I like him; he’s got something to say,” returned Leslie.

“Augusta’s looking at you, like a hen after a stray chicken.  She’s all but clucking now.”

“Mr. Wharne will tell her.”

But Mr. Wharne was not in the room.  He came back just as Leslie was making her way again, after the dance, to Mrs. Linceford.