"No."

At this last negative a united howl went up from the assembled circle.

"Can't dance? Where have you lived? Make her try! She's got to learn! Take her arm and teach her some steps! She won't? She'll have to! No one's to be let off to-night!"

"Gerda Thorwaldson," said Evie Bennett impressively,[18] "we give you your choice. You either try to dance this very instant, or you stand on that table and sing a song—in English, mind, not German!"

[18]

"Which will you choose?" clamoured three or four urgent voices.

"Oh, I say! It's too bad to rag her so, just at first!" protested Doris Patterson, a shade more sympathetic than the rest.

"Not a bit of it! If she's really English, she must show it—and if she won't, she's nothing but a foreigner!" blustered Dulcie Wilcox.

"This is easy enough," volunteered Annie Pridwell, performing a few steps by way of encouragement. "Now, come along and do as I do."

"Fly, little birdie, fly!" mocked Betty Scott.

"She's too stupid!"

"She's going to blub!"

"Leave her alone!"

"No, make her dance!"

"Don't let her sneak out of it!"

"I say, what's going on here?" said a fresh voice, as Marcia Richards entered the room, and, after pausing a moment to take in the situation, strode indignantly to the rescue of poor Gerda, who, still shy and half-bewildered with so many questions, stood almost weeping in the midst of the circle.

"Is this the way you treat a new girl? You ought to be ashamed of yourselves! No, she shan't learn to dance if she doesn't want to! Not to-night, at any rate. Come along with me, Gerda, and have some cocoa upstairs. Don't trouble your head about this[19] noisy set. If they've no better manners, I'm sorry for them!"

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