“Lord, H’ram, stop!” gasped the victim; “yore sp’ilin’ my necktie an’ collar.”

“’Gin the rules to wear ’em,” was the laughing reply.  “Heer, Joe, you sprinkle ’im while I hold ’im!”

This command was about to be obeyed, when Mrs. Bradley suddenly appeared.

“Boys, boys, behave!” she cried, and as the wrestlers separated she continued, apologetically, “I clean forgot thar wusn’t a sign of a towel on the roller; I wonder what you intended to wipe on; here, take this one, an’ hang it up when you’re through.”  Then she turned to Westerfelt’s door and looked into his room.

“Are you ready, young man?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied, coming out.

“Gentlemen,” she said, “quit thar a minute!  This is John Westerfelt, my old friend.  Mind you look atter yore intrusts.  The boys over in Fannin know how to please the gals.  Ef you don’t watch sharp he’ll cut you every one out.”

The two men holding the towel between them gave him their moist hands, and those at the basins nodded.  Mrs. Bradley drew him into the sitting-room.  The buzz of conversation ceased as she introduced him.  They all rose, bowed, and sat down again, but no one spoke.  He tried to detain his hostess, but she would not stay.

“I’ve got to look atter the rest,” she said.  “You must talk to some o’ these folks.  They didn’t come here jest to look at you.  Here, Jennie Wynn, turn yore face round, an’ give Frank a chance to talk to Lou.”  She whisked off into another room, and Westerfelt found himself facing a blushing maiden with a round face, dark hair and eyes.

“Excuse my back,” she said over her shoulder to Frank Hansard.

“It hain’t as purty as yore face, ef you have got on a new dress,” he replied, laughing.

“Hush, Frank; hain’t you got no manners?” She meant that he was showing discourtesy by continuing to talk to her when she had just been introduced to a stranger.

“You ought not to be hard on him,” said Westerfelt; “he must have meant what he said.”

“You are jest like all the rest, I reckon,” she said; “men think girls don’t care for nothin’ but sweet talk.”

Just then the old negro fiddler moved into the chimney-corner and raked his violin with his bow.  Jennie Wynn knew that he was about to ask the couples to take their places for the first dance.  She did not want Westerfelt to feel obliged to ask her to be his partner, so she pretended to be interested in the talk of a couple on her left.

“Do they dance the lancers?” asked Westerfelt.

“No, jest the reg’lar square dance.  Only one or two know the lancers, an’ they make a botch of it whenever they try to teach the rest.  Uncle Mack cayn’t play the music for it, anyway, though he swears he can.”

She glanced across the room at a pretty little girl with short curly hair, slender body, and small feet, and added, significantly, “Sarah Wambush is our brag dancer.”