Page:A New England Tale.djvu/77

66 learn to dance, if you was not obliged to wear deep mourning, and could afford to pay for it?"

Jane, all used as she was to the coarseness of her cousins, would sometimes feel the colour come unbidden to her cheeks, and she felt them glow as she replied, "I learned to dance, Elvira, during the year I spent at Mrs. B.'s boarding school."

"La, is it possible? I never heard you say a word about it."

"No," said Jane; "many things have happened to me that you never heard me say a word about."

"Oh! I dare say, Miss Jane. Every body knows your cold, reserved disposition. My sensibility would destroy me, if I did not permit it to flow out into a sympathizing bosom."

"But now, Jane," said she, shutting the door, and lowering her voice, "I have hit upon a capital plan to cheat mother. There is to be a little ball to-night, after the school; and I have promised Edward Erskine to go with him to it. For once, Jane, be generous, and lend me a helping-hand. In the first place, to get rid of the meeting, I am going to put a flannel round my throat, to tell my mother it is very sore, and I have a head-ach; and then I shall go to bed; but as soon as she is well out of the house, I shall get up and dress me, and wind that pretty wreath,of yours, which I'm sure you will lend me, around my head, and meet Erskine just at the pear-tree, at the end of the garden. Then, as to the return, you know you told mother you could not go to meeting, because you was going to stay with old Phillis, and I