“I’m looking for an empty partner,” he said.

I captured a passing girl, very small, and they danced away together.  The boy I could see was very energetic, the girl was very small and fat.  As they passed me I heard her say, “I —­ can’t —­ go —­ so —­ fast!”

“Very sorry,” said the small boy, “but I must keep up with the music.”

Dolly found me.  “I think I had better dance gentleman,” she said; “I think I am as tall as you.”  With a tremendous effort she drew her slim figure to its full height, and, gazing up into my face she had the audacity to say, “Yes, I do just look down upon you; anyhow, men aren’t always taller than girls.  My cousin says so, and she goes to dances — heaps —­ and she is six foot.”

We started off, I felt at once, on a perilous course.  “You see,” she said, “I had better —­ steer —­ because” (bump we went into somebody), “because —­ I dance once a week —­ always” (crash), “sometimes oftener —­ so I get —­ plenty of practice” (bang) “in steering, and that helps.  I love dancing —­ don’t you?  Oh, that’s all right —­ it’s —­ only —­ the stupid —­ old mantelpiece —­ I always go into that —­ it sticks out so —­ doesn’t it?  It is hard —­ rather!”

Dolly was a flyer and no mistake.  I was brought to a standstill at last by colliding with Thomas’s Fraulein.

“It’s all right,” said Dolly generously, “you didn’t hurt us!”

Fraulein was hurled on to a sofa and made no remark.  She gave up temporarily the management of Thomas’s left leg.

“Shall we sit out?” said Dolly.  “It is hot, isn’t it?”

She fanned herself with a very small program and tossed her hair back from her face.  It was such lovely hair.

“Hair is beastly stuff, isn’t it?” she said.  “Wouldn’t you love to be a boy?  Oh, I promised mother not to say I ‘beastly’; that’s one of the things I would like to be a boy for, because boys may do such an awful lot of things.”

I soon found out that Dolly liked boys better than girls.

She loved horses and dogs.

She hated and detested bearing-reins.

She didn’t want to come out.

She thought grown-ups silly, except some —

She loved the country and strawberry ice.

She hated dull lessons, and I very soon discovered that there were none other than dull.

She collected stamps.

She longed to have a pet monkey or a brother, she didn’t much mind which.

At the mention of brothers I looked down at Dolly’s slim legs, clothed in fine black silk stockings, at the valenciennes lace on her muslin frock, and I imagined that if she had any brothers, the younger ones would be quite likely to have started life in trousers of their own.  Yes, Dolly looked like it.  I learned a great deal from her in the time it had taken me to get “yeth” and “nope” out of Thomas.

The energetic boy who had been obliged to keep up with the music at all costs, the little fat girl’s in particular, came up to me, and said in an aggrieved voice, “Miss Daly has spoilt my program; she can’t write, and she has written big D’s all over it.  Will you write me out a fresh one?”