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 youth, who clasped his mother's waist and whirled her off her feet. At last after many adventures she reached the foot, exhausted but cheerful, and the next couple had their turn.

It was a grand dance, everybody said when it was over, and Mrs. Fallow- Deer received many congratulations on her brisk dancing.

Larkington's spirits had been raised to a very high point by the dance, and a parting bottle of champagne cracked with Count Clawski failed to lower them. When the time came for him to lift Gladys into the dogcart, he felt equal to any feat of prowess, even that of asking this tall proud girl if she would be his wife, and accept the endowment of all his worldly goods, which at that moment might easily have been packed in his large portmanteau, in exchange for the millions which he supposed to be her dower.

Gladys, too, seemed less like a statue than she had been half an hour before by the seashore. Her pale cheeks were a little flushed