And then we danced again till the walls spun round quicker than ourselves, and even Uncle Nico’s seasoned arms began to feel the strain.  And still—­“Faster!  Faster!” cried the men, and the girls would not be beaten.  And the ropes of flowers above the green-bed swung as though in a summer gale, and the roses leaped out and joined in the dance, till the smell of them, as they were trampled by the flying feet, filled all the room.

Then, while we lay spent and panting, the men mopping themselves with their kerchiefs, and the girls fanning themselves with theirs, Aunt Jeanne, who had had time to recover from her unwonted exertions with Uncle Henry Vaudin, recited some of the old-time poems, of which she managed to carry a string in her head in addition to all the other odds and ends which it contained.

She gave us “L’ R’tou du Terre-Neuvi opres San Prumi Viage”—­

    “Mais en es-tu bain seu, ma fille? 
    Not’ Jean est-i don bain r’v’nu? 
    Tu dis que nou l’a veu en ville,
    I m’etonn’ qu’i n’sait deja v’nu”—­

eighteen long verses, full of tender little touches telling of the hysterical upsetting in the mother’s heart at the safe return of her boy from the perils of the sea.

And to me, who had just seen it all in my own mother’s heart, it struck right home, and came near to making me foolish in the matter of wet eyes.  And, besides, Aunt Jeanne would keep looking at me, as she reeled it off in her sharp little voice, which was softer than I had ever heard it before, and that made Carette and all the other girls look at me also, till I was glad when she was done, I was getting so uncomfortable.

Then, when at last the poor sailor-boy in the story was so full that he could not take another bite—­not even a bite of pancake on which his mother in her upsetting had sprinkled salt instead of sugar—­that poem came to an end, and by way of a change Aunt Jeanne plunged headlong into—­

    “Ma Tante est une menagere
    Coum je cre qu’i gn’y’en a pouit”—­

hitting off in another twenty long verses the strong and weak points of an old and very managing Auntie, not unlike herself in her good points, and very unlike her in her bad ones.  And we joyfully pointed them all back at the managing Auntie in front of us, good and bad points alike, and laughed ourselves almost black in the face at the most telling strokes; all except young Torode, who laughed, indeed, but not heartily like the rest,—­rather as though he thought us an uncommonly childish set of people for our ages.  And so we were that night, and enjoyed ourselves mightily.

Then young Torode sang “Jean Grain d’orge,” in a fine big voice, and Carette sang “Nico v’nait m’ faire l’amour,” in a very sweet one, and I was sorely troubled that I had never learned to sing.

Then to dancing again, and it was only then, as I leaned against the door-post watching Carette go round and round with young Torode, in a way that I could not help but feel was smoother and neater than when my arm was round her, that a chance word between two girls sitting near me startled me into the knowledge that I had been guilty of another foolishness, and had overlooked another most important matter that night.  You see, I had been in a flutter ever since I reached home, and one cannot think of everything.