She coloured slightly, and withdrew her hand, but not angrily.

Seeing the eyes of Cristal and Mabel sternly fixed on me, I bowed deeply, and withdrew from her; my heart saddening, and my eyes becoming dim in spite of me, as the shifting crowd hid us from each other.
It was my intention to have crept back to my comrade Willie, and resumed my bow with such spirit as I might, although, at the moment, I would have given half my income for an instant's solitude.

But my retreat was cut off by Dame Martin, with the frankness--if it is not an inconsistent phrase-of rustic coquetry, that goes straight up to the point.
'Aye, lad, ye seem unco sune weary, to dance sae lightly?
Better the nag that ambles a' the day, than him that makes a brattle for a mile, and then's dune wi' the road.' This was a fair challenge, and I could not decline accepting it.
Besides, I could see Dame Martin was queen of the revels; and so many were the rude and singular figures about me, that I was by no means certain whether I might not need some protection.

I seized on her willing hand, and we took our places in the dance, where, if I did not acquit myself with all the accuracy of step and movement which I had before attempted, I at least came up to the expectations of my partner, who said, and almost swore, 'I was prime at it;' while, stimulated to her utmost exertions, she herself frisked like a kid, snapped her fingers like castanets, whooped like a Bacchanal, and bounded from the floor like a tennis-ball,--aye, till the colour of her garters was no particular mystery.

She made the less secret of this, perhaps, that they were sky-blue, and fringed with silver.
The time has been that this would have been special fun; or rather, last night was the only time I can recollect these four years when it would not have been so; yet, at this moment, I cannot tell you how I longed to be rid of Dame Martin.