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Up they went, perhaps a hundred of them, rooks and jackdaws together cawing and soaring round and round till they reached a great height. At that level, as if they had attained their ballroom, they swept round and round on outstretched wings, describing circles and ovals in the air. Caw-caw! jack-juck-juck! Thus dancing in slow measure, they enjoyed the sunshine, full from their feast of acorns.
Patty was especially deft at this, and with true aim succeeded several times. Then when they tired of this play, a few more dances followed before it was time to go home. Some attendants came in and whisked away the snow hillocks and floor covering, leaving the ballroom once again in order for dancing.
Stafford smoked a cigarette and sauntered back to the ballroom. He passed the group of city men again, and caught a word or two in the baron's gruff voice: "I want to know how we shtand! The plow will shmash him; but the rest of us us who are in de shwim. If de natives have risen " But Stafford paid little heed forgot the words as soon as he had heard them; and went in search of his partner.
His fury subsided as he remained quietly in his place, but deep down in his heart there was born a hatred for Mr. Tiralla. The dancers also fell down more frequently. The boards shook, and the clouds of dust became thicker and thicker. The ballroom was gloomy and oppressive. Mrs. Tiralla's dress no longer flew about as it had done during the first part of the evening.
Tiralla was like a flame, in spite of her white dress and her cheeks that never got red hot, but never red for she set fire to the whole ballroom. Crimson and white flags, that swayed incessantly backwards and forwards in the draught created by the dancers as they whirled past, had been fixed to the bare wooden partitions, through which the wind whistled straight from the plain.
The children were leaving the ballroom when the scouts took their final drink of pink lemonade, as Grace insisted on calling the fruit punch, and as they came out to the porch for their "good-nights," mothers and nurses were gathering the fluttering little ones to their arms. They were about to leave when a shrill voice from the hall startled every one, "Oh, come quick, a doctor!
They swam, and boated and fished, and, above all, flirted, for there were always plenty of men; and in the evenings they danced in the ballroom of the casino, built on the edge of the water. Angela never tired of going from end to end of the lake in the steamboat that set out from the tavern jetty in the morning and returned in the afternoon.
As they vanished through the doorway the people gave them a hearty cheer, and resumed dancing. The sportsman found himself so much overcome that he could only ejaculate, "aw!" But presently he recovered so far as to say, "Let's go an' have a ciga'," and he also melted from the scene. Two conversations took place shortly after the scene in the ballroom, and to these we now draw attention.
They were staying at Madden Hall, and as they reached it, there, too, music was being played, and some people were dancing in the big ballroom. But there were no children about, so Midget trotted off to bed cheerfully, with lots of pleasant anticipations for the morrow.
I'd sort of been workin' myself up to the sacrifice, for you know Marjorie's some hefty partner for anybody not in trainin' to steer around a ballroom floor; but I'd figured out that the longer I put it off the worse it would be. So off I trails with my heels draggin' a little heavy. "Why, thanks ever so much, Torchy," says she, "but I think I have a partner for the first four or five.
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