Leonore said, “You get the ideas very nicely, but you hit much too hard.  You can’t hit a ball too softly.  You pound it as if you were trying to smash it.”

“It’s something I really must learn,” said Peter, who had refused over and over again in the past.

“I’ll teach you, while you are here,” said Leonore.

Peter did not refuse this time.

Nor did he refuse another lesson.  When they had drifted into the drawing-room, Leonore asked:  “Have you been learning how to valse?”

Peter smiled at so good an American using so European a word, but said seriously, “No.  I’ve been too busy.”

“That’s a shame,” said Leonore, “because there are to be two dances this week, and mamma has written to get you cards.”

“Is it very hard?” asked Peter.

“No,” said Leonore.  “It’s as easy as breathing, and much nicer.”

“Couldn’t you teach me that, also?”

“Easily.  Mamma, will you play a valse?  Now see.”  Leonore drew her skirts back with one hand, so as to show the little feet, and said:  “one, two, three, so.  One, two, three, so.  Now do that.”

Peter had hoped that the way to learn dancing was to take the girl in one’s arms.  But he recognized that this would follow.  So he set to work manfully to imitate that dainty little glide.  It seemed easy as she did it.  But it was not so easy when he tried it.

“Oh, you clumsy,” said Leonore laughing.  “See.  One, two, three, so.  One, two, three, so.”

Peter forgot to notice the step, in his admiration of the little feet and the pretty figure.

“Well,” said Leonore after a pause, “are you going to do that?”

So Peter tried again, and again, and again.  Peter would have done it all night, with absolute contentment, so long as Leonore, after every failure, would show him the right way in her own person.

Finally she said, “Now take my hands.  No.  Way apart, so that I can see your feet.  Now.  We’ll try it together.  One, two, change.  One, two, change.”

Peter thought this much better, and was ready to go on till strength failed.  But after a time, Leonore said, “Now.  We’ll try it the true way.  Take my hand so and put your arm so.  That’s the way.  Only never hold a girl too close.  We hate it.  Yes.  That’s it.  Now, mamma.  Again.  One, two, three.  One, two, three.”

This was heavenly, Peter thought, and could have wept over the shortness, as it seemed to him, of this part of the lesson.

But it ended, and Leonore said:  “If you’ll practice that in your room, with a bolster, you’ll get on very fast.”

“I always make haste slowly,” said Peter, not taking to the bolster idea at all kindly.  “Probably you can find time to-morrow for another lesson, and I’ll learn much quicker with you.”

“I’ll see.”

“And will you give me some waltzes at the dances?”

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said Leonore.  “You shall have the dances the other men don’t ask of me.  But you don’t dance well enough, in case I can get a better partner.  I love valsing too much to waste one with a poor dancer.”