Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/57

netic shock electrifies a whole circle of linked human beings. They hardly recognized each other, this quiet, hard-working maiden, and this melancholy, brooding man, who had for weeks met and parted every day, each speaking his own language and ignorant of the other's as of a foreign tongue. At last they understood each other, and the contagious gayety of the pair set the whole line of dancing folk into a sympathetic merriment. The master of ceremonies was in despair as the couples, abandoning the set figures, which he called aloud in a persuasive voice, followed the new-comers through quaint and intricate measures never trod before. It seemed as if Terpsichore had abandoned her sex and was masquerading in the form of this tall fellow, who looked the very incarnation of the dance as he led the merry throng through march and counter march, flourish, promenade, galop, and at last the waltz, which Robert started, catching his lithe, tireless partner in his arms and whirling her to its wavy measures. His dark face was flushed with the passion of the dance, and faster and faster he whirled his light burden through the swaying maze of men and maids. "Enough, enough!" cried a youth, and the cry was repeated; it seemed as if they could not leave the mad whirl into which he had led them without the signal from this self-appointed master of the