“Select your partners for a square dance!” big John, the caller-off announced, when the floor was cleared.  This was the dance that Mr. and Mrs. Slater would have to dance.  It was in vain that Mrs. Slater whispered that she had not danced for years, that she was a Methodist bred and born.  That did not matter.  Her son Peter declared that his mother could dance beautifully, jigs and hornpipes and things like that.  He had often seen her at it when she was down in the milkhouse alone.

Mrs. Slater whispered dreadful threats; but her son Peter insisted, and when big John’s voice rang out “Honors all,” “Corners the same,” Mrs. Slater yielded to the tide of public opinion.

Puffing and blowing she got through the “First four right and left,” “Right and left back and ladies’ chain”; but when it came to “Right hand to partner” and “Grand right and left,” it was good-bye to mother!  Peter dashed into the set to put his mother right, but mother was always pointing the wrong way.  “Swing the feller that stole the sheep,” big John sang to the music; “Dance to the one that drawed it home,” “Whoop ’er up there, you Bud,” “Salute the one that et the beef” and “Swing the dog, that gnawed the bone.”  “First couple lead to the right,” and mother and father went forward again and “Balance all!” Tonald McKenzie was opposite mother; Tonald McKenzie did steps—­Highland fling steps they were.  Tonald was a Crofter from the hills, and had a secret still of his own which made him a sort of uncrowned king among the Crofters.  It was a tight race for popularity between mother and Tonald in that set, and when the two stars met face to face in the “Balance all!” Tonald surpassed all former efforts.  He cracked his heels together, he snapped his fingers; he threaded the needle; he wrung the dishcloth—­oh you should have seen Tonald!

Then big John clapped his hands together, and the first figure was over.

In the second figure for which the violins played “My Love Is but a Lassie Yet,” Mrs. Slater’s memory began to revive, and the dust of twenty years fell from her dancing experience.  She went down the centre and back again, right and left on the side, ladies’ chain on the head, right hand to partner and grand right and left, as neat as you please, and best of all, when all the ladies circled to the left, and all the gentlemen circled to the right, no one was quicker to see what was the upshot of it all; and before big John told them to “Form the basket,” mother whispered to father that she knew what was coming, and father told mother she was a wonderful woman for a Methodist.  “Turn the basket inside out,” “Circle to the left—­to the centre and back, circle to the right,” “Swing the girl with the hole in her sock,” “Promenade once and a half around on the head, once and a half around on the side,” “Turn ’em around to place again and balance all!” “Clap!  Clap!  Clap!”

Mother wanted to quit then, but dear me no! no one would let her, they would dance the “Break-down” now, and leave out the third figure, and as a special inducement, they would dance “Dan Tucker.”  She would stay for “Dan Tucker.”  Peter came in for “Tucker,” an extra man being necessary, and then off they went into