“Would you prefer to be made to feel eight feet?  Plenty of people will do that for you.  You see I so often find a yardstick measures my own height, I know the humiliating sensation it is.  And I’m never more convinced of my own smallness than when I see my uncles and their families at Christmas, especially Uncle Rufus.  Do you know which one he is?”

“You were dancing with him when I came in.”

“I didn’t see you come in.”

“I might have known that,” he admitted with a rueful laugh.  “Well, did you dance an old-fashioned square dance with him, and is he a delightful looking, elderly gentleman with a face like a jolly boy?”

“Exactly that—­and he’s a boy in heart, too, but a man in mind.  I wonder if—­”

“He’d care to meet me?  I’m sure you weren’t going to ask if I’d care to meet him.  But I’d consider it an honour if he’d let me be presented to him.”

“Now you’re talking properly,” said she.  “It is an honour to be allowed to know Uncle Rufus, and I think you’ll feel it so.”  She rose.

He got up reluctantly.  “Thank you, I certainly shall,” said he quite soberly.  “But—­must we go this minute?  Surely you can sit out one number, and I’ll promise after that to stand on my head and dance with a broomstick if it will please your guests.”

“I’ve a mind to hold you to that offer,” said she, with mischief in her eyes.  “But the next number is the old-time ‘Lancers,’ and I’m needed.  Should you like to dance it?”

“With you?  I—­”

“Of course not.  With—­well, with Aunt Ruth, Uncle Rufus’s wife.  You ought to know her if you’re to know him.  She’s just a bit lame, but we always get her to dance the ‘Lancers’ once on Christmas Eve, and if you want the dearest partner in the room you shall have her.”

“I’ll be delighted, if you’ll tell me how it goes.  If it’s like the thing I saw you dancing I can manage it, I’m sure.”

“It’s enough like it so you’ll have no trouble.  I’ll dance opposite you and keep you straight.  See here—­” and she gave him a hasty outline of the figures.

His eyes were sparkling as he followed her out of the alcove.  To be allowed to dance opposite Roberta and be “kept straight” by her through the figures of an unfamiliar, old-fashioned affair like the “Lancers” was a privilege indeed.  He laughed to himself to think what certain people he knew would say to his new idea of privilege.

He bent before Mrs. Rufus Gray, offered her his arm, and took her out upon the floor, accommodating his step to the little limp of his partner.  As he stood waiting with her he was observing her as he had never before observed a woman of her years.  Of all, the sweet faces, of all the bright eyes, of all the pleasant voices—­Aunt Ruth captured his interest and admiration from the moment when she first smiled at him.