"I confess I don't quite know what a timbrel is." "A sort of tambourine, I suppose," said Hannah merrily, "and she sang because the children of Israel were saved." They both laughed heartily, but when the waltz was over they returned to their individual gloom.

Towards supper-time, in the middle of a square dance, Sam suddenly noticing Hannah's solitude, brought her a tall bronzed gentlemanly young man in a frock coat, mumbled an introduction and rushed back to the arms of the exacting Leah.
"Excuse me, I am not dancing to-night," Hannah said coldly in reply to the stranger's demand for her programme.
"Well, I'm not half sorry," he said, with a frank smile.

"I had to ask you, you know.

But I should feel quite out of place bumping such a lot of swells." There was something unusual about the words and the manner which impressed Hannah agreeably, in spite of herself.

Her face relaxed a little as she said: "Why, haven't you been to one of these affairs before ?" "Oh yes, six or seven years ago, but the place seems quite altered.
They've rebuilt it, haven't they?
Very few of us sported dress-coats here in the days before I went to the Cape.