ponderously to the ball. The tavern was all alight. Many other sleds
were drawn up before the door; indeed, certain of the young men who
had not their especial sweethearts took their ox-sleds and went from
door to door collecting the young women. Many a jingling load slipped
along the snowy road to the tavern that night, and the ball-room
filled rapidly.

At eight o'clock the ball opened. Madelon stood up in the little
gallery allotted to the violins and lilted, and the march began. Two
and two, the young men and the girls swung around the room. Madelon
lilted with her eyes upon the moving throng, gay as a garden in a
wind; and suddenly her heart stood still, although she lilted on.
Down on the floor below Burr Gordon led the march, with Dorothy Fair
on his arm. Dorothy Fair, waving a great painted fan with the
tremulous motion of a butterfly's wing, with her blue brocade
petticoat tilting airily as she moved, like an inverted bell-flower,
with a locket set in brilliants flashing on her white neck, with her
pink-and-white face smiling out with gentle gayety from her fair
curls, stepped delicately, pointing out her blue satin toes, around
the ball-room, with one little white hand on Burr Gordon's arm.




Chapter III


Suddenly all Madelon's beauty was cheapened in her own eyes. She saw
herself swart and harsh-faced as some old savage squaw beside this
fair angel. She turned on herself as well as on her recreant lover