was in them.  They did not seem to know that they were dancing.  They did not dance; they floated, flowing like a current moved by easy undulations.  Their hands were clasped.  Their faces nearly touched.  Their eyes were closed or glowing.  And still the long bow came and went, and still the music rose and sank, swelled and ebbed, as easy waves advance, retreat and flood again, breaking in white and lazy murmurs at twilight on the dusky beach.

Herbert stood still; his eyes were lifted, the gaze in them far away, and one foot beat the measure.  Beside him stood the Trapper.  His arms were crossed; his eyes were on the bow that the Lad was drawing, and his body swayed, lifted and sank in perfect harmony with the motions and the accompanying sound, with a grace which nature only reaches when the will is utterly surrendered to a power that has charmed the stiffness and tension out of the frame and made it yielding and responsive.

At last the music stopped; and with it stopped each form.  Each foot was arrested at the point to which the sound had carried it when it paused.  Each couple stood in perfect pose.  The motive power which moved them was withdrawn, and the limbs stood motionless as if the soul that gave them animation had retired.  They had been lifted to another world—­a world of impulse and movement more airy and spirit-like than the gross earth,—­and it took a moment for them to struggle back to ordinary life.  But in a moment thought recalled them to themselves, and they realized the mastery of the power that had held them at its will and the applause broke out in showers of happy tumult.  They crowded around the Lad—­strong men and beautiful women,—­gazing at him in wonder; then broke up into knots talking and marvelling.  To the old Trapper’s face, as he gazed at the Lad, a strange look came,—­the look of a man to whose soul has come a revelation so pure and sweet that he is unable at first to compass it with his understanding.  He came close to the Lad, and, sitting down on the edge of the platform, put his hand on the knee of the youth, and said: 

“I have heerd most of the sweet and terrible noises that natur’ makes, boy:  I have heered the thunder among the hills, when the Lord was knockin’ ag’in the ’arth until it jarred; and I have heered the wind in the pines and the waves on the beaches when the darkness of night was on the woods, and Natur’ was singin’ her evenin’ psalm; and there be no bird or beast the Lord has made whose cry, be it lively or solemn, I have not heerd; and I have said that man had never made an instrument that could make so sweet a noise as Natur’ makes when the Sperit of the universe speaks through her stillness:  but ye have made sounds to-night, Lad, sweeter than my ears have ever heerd on hill or lake-shore, at noon or in the night season, and I sartinly believe that the Sperit of the Lord has been with ye, boy, and gi’n ye the power to bring out sech music as the Book says the angels make in their