“We’ll have time enough there,” returned Jerome, stepping high and gingerly, lest he soil his nicely blacked shoes.

“It will be dreadful to go in late and have them all looking at us, Jerome.”

“What if they do look at us,” Jerome argued, manfully, but he was in reality himself full of nervous tremors.  Sometimes, to a soul with a broad outlook and large grasp, the great stresses of life are not as intimidating as its small and deceitful amenities.

When they reached Squire Merritt’s house and saw all the windows, parallelograms of golden light, shining through the thick growth of trees, his hands and feet were cold, his heart beat hard.  “I’m acting like a girl,” he thought, indignantly, straightened himself, and marched on to the front door, as if it were the postern of a fortress.

But Elmira caught her brother by the long, blue coat-tail, and brought him to a stand.

“Oh, Jerome,” she whispered, “there are so many there, and we are so late, I’m afraid to go in.”

“What are you afraid of?” demanded Jerome, with a rustic brusqueness which was foreign to him.  “Come along.”  He pulled his coat away and strode on, and Elmira had to follow.

The front door of Squire Merritt’s house stood open into the hall the night was so warm, some girls in white were coming down the wide spiral of stair within, pressing softly together like scared white doves, in silence save for the rustle of their starched skirts.  From the great rooms on either side of the hall, however, came the murmur of conversation, with now and then a silvery break of laughter, like a sudden cascade in an even current.

Flower-decked heads and silken-gleaming shoulders passed between the windows and the light, outlining vividly every line and angle and curve—­the keen cut of profiles, the scallops of perked-up lace, the sharp dove-tails of ribbons.  Before one window was upreared the great back and head of a man, still as a statue, yet with the persistency of stillness, of life.

That dogged stiffness, which betrays the utter self-abasement of resticity in fine company, was evident in his pose, even to one coming up the path.  This party at Squire Merritt’s was democratic, including many whose only experiences in social gatherings of their neighbors had come through daily labor and worship.  All the young people in Upham had been invited; the Squire’s three boon companions, Doctor Prescott and his wife, and the minister and his daughter, were the only elders bidden, since the party was for Lucina.

“The door’s open,” Elmira whispered, nervously.  “Is it right to knock when the door’s open, or walk right in, O Jerome?”

Jerome, for answer, stepped resolutely in, reached the knocker, raised it, and let it fall with a great imperious clang of brass, defying, as it were, his own shyness, like a herald at arms.

The white-clad girls on the stairs turned as with one accord their innocently abashed faces towards the door, then pushed one another on, and into the parlor, with soft titters and whispers.