Page:Anne's house of dreams (1920 Canada).djvu/159

 a Viking of elder days, dancing with one of the blue-eyed, golden-haired daughters of the Northland.

“The purtiest dancing I ever saw, and I’ve seen some in my time,” declared Captain Jim, when at last the bow fell from his tired hand. Leslie dropped into her chair, laughing, breathless.

“I love dancing,” she said apart to Anne. “I haven’t danced since I was sixteen—but I love it. The music seems to run through my veins like quicksilver and I forget everything—everything—except the delight of keeping time to it. There isn’t any floor beneath me, or walls about me, or roof over me—I’m floating amid the stars.”

Captain Jim hung his fiddle up in its place, beside a large frame enclosing several banknotes.

“Is there anybody else of your acquaintance who can afford to hang his walls with banknotes for pictures?” he asked. “There’s twenty ten-dollar notes there, not worth the glass over them. They’re old Bank of P. E. Island notes. Had them by me when the bank failed, and I had ’em framed and hung up, partly as a reminder not to put your trust in banks, and partly to give me a real luxurious, millionairy feeling. Hullo, Matey, don’t be scared. You can come back now. The music and revelry is over for tonight. The old year has just another hour to stay with us. I’ve seen seventy-six New Years come in over that gulf yonder, Mistress Blythe.”

“You’ll see a hundred,” said Marshall Elliott.